


A Light That's Keeping Us Forever

by enoughtotemptme



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Regency, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Bartender!Bellamy, Bartenders, Best friend's brother, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Drunk!Clarke, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Magic, Mama!Clarke, Meet-Cute, Neighbors, Pregnancy, Roommates, Secret Relationship, Single Parents, Uncle!Bellamy, Witches, daddy!bellamy, grounder!bellamy, police officer!bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-20 00:07:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 51
Words: 91,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enoughtotemptme/pseuds/enoughtotemptme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part One: Clarke and Bellamy and the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.</p><p>Part Two: Bellamy has been tense and Clarke decides the best way for him to relieve stress is by giving him a massage.</p><p>Part Three: Snapchat. </p><p>(A collection of tumblr prompt fics.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seven Letters

**Author's Note:**

> [Click here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11651095) or go to Chapter 51 for a Table of Contents.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From jasminenightshade on tumblr: "Clarke and Bellamy and the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle."

When Clarke shuffles sleepily into the kitchen wearing Bellamy’s shirt and a pair of socks, Bellamy’s sitting at the dining table surrounded by the New York Times. The oversized mug that’s decorated with a little bone and the words  _I found this humerus_ that he bought for her when she got her radiology fellowship is sitting in the tiny bit of open space left on the surface, steam still curling up from it. 

“I love you,” she sighs as she sits in the seat next to him and wraps her hands around the warm mug. His is next to it, already empty, and Clarke smiles when she notices it’s the one she gave him when he got tenured:  _I have a black belt in history._

Bellamy mumbles vaguely in response and frowns at the Sunday crossword puzzle. Clarke scoots her chair closer so she can lean against him and peer down at the clues.

“‘Spartan colonnades’?” Clarke reads aloud. 

“Stoas,” he says in a distracted tone. “I already got that one. They’re like Greek covered walkways.”  Then he groans. “I  _know_ I know this one. It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“Which clue?” she asks. He shifts the paper so it’s a little closer to her and points. 

“Nine down, twelve letters. ‘To throw out a window.’” 

“Defenestrate,” Clarke replies immediately, and takes a huge gulp of her coffee. It’s prepared just the way she likes it, milky and sweeter than any human being should be able to tolerate, as Bellamy likes to tell her.

Bellamy promptly fills in the word, then turns to look at her and raises an eyebrow. “That was quick.” 

She shrugs. “It’s a hard word to forget. High school, AP European History, we learned about the Defenestration of Prague. Some Catholics were thrown out of a window and fell seventy feet but survived because they landed in a––”

Clarke’s cut off in the middle of her sentence by Bellamy’s mouth on hers. She squeaks in surprise, but then she smiles against his lips and kisses him back. When he finally pulls away, he doesn’t go far, just leans his forehead against hers. 

“What was  _that_ for?” she asks breathlessly, still smiling. 

“You know I love it when you talk history to me,” he says with a grin, and presses another hot kiss to her lips. Clarke moans into his mouth when he sucks her bottom lip, and she blindly sets her mug back on the table so she can thread her hands through his messy bed hair. 

In between kisses, Bellamy asks “Did you––know that was––actually––the  _Second––_ Defenestration––of Prague?”

He wraps an arm around her waist and hauls her off her chair and into his lap. Once she’s straddling him, his mouth goes straight to her neck.

“ _Really_?” she pants. “Why don’t you–– _oh––_ teach me about it?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, tugging the collar of the shirt down so he can nibble on her clavicle. “I’m in the middle of the crossword. And it’s a  _very_ stimulating puzzle this week.” 

Clarke huffs. “Well, here’s my clue for you: seven letters, ‘I’m not wearing any  _blank_.’” 

Bellamy pauses in the middle of unbuttoning the shirt and pulls away to look at her. 

“Pajamas?” he says slowly. 

She bites her lip to keep from grinning and shakes her head. “First two letters are right, though. Oh, and the last one.” 

(It only takes him one more guess, but he gets it  _exactly_  right.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **If you like any particular chapter and would like me to post it as a stand-alone fic for ease of downloading/ease of access/ease of finding again, etc., just let me know in a comment and I'll happily do so. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Dizzy on Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From jasminenightshade on tumblr: "Bellamy has been tense and Clarke decides the best way for him to relieve stress is by giving him a massage. ;)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a little different; it didn’t exactly turn out with the massage I originally intended, but I hope you still enjoy the end result. To no one’s surprise, this prompt turned into explicit smut. And therefore it got kind of long…

The third time Bellamy lets out a muffled groan from the living room, Clarke sighs and puts her pastel down. She’s already ahead on her portfolio for her MFA, and anyway it’s pretty impossible to concentrate on her imagining of a post-apocalyptic Lincoln Memorial when her boyfriend won’t shut up _._

She leaves her project scattered over the table and turns the corner into the living room. Bellamy is face up on the ugly but sinfully comfortable couch they got off of craigslist for seventy-five bucks, and dozens of bluebooks are stacked in a haphazard tower on the ground next to him. Clarke peeks at them and they’re all marked with a percentage.  

Clarke nudges his shoulder until he groans again, rolling over a little bit so he can glare up at her. 

“Move,” she commands. He obeys, sitting up until there’s room for Clarke to sit on the couch. She plops down and then pats her thighs with an expectant expression; he gives her a tired smile and lays his head down in her lap. 

“Midterms got you down?” she asks, starting to comb her fingers through his hair. The dark curls are soft and a little slick, and when she scratches her nails gently over his scalp, he closes his eyes and turns his face toward her stomach. 

“Why couldn’t I be a T.A. for a biology class or something?” he grumbles, and Clarke can feel the warmth of his breath against her belly even through the fabric of her old undergrad college t-shirt. “Nucleus. Ribosome. Mitochondria. Powerhouse of the cell.  _Multiple choice.”_

Clarke can’t help but laugh at his irritation even as her fingers move from his scalp to smooth down his neck to his chest and shoulders. “Probably because they don’t think a guy from the Classics department would be very good at explaining the difference between mitosis and meiosis to a bunch of undergrads.”

“It’s not like I expect perfect spelling or anything,” he sighs. “But I couldn’t even  _read_ their essay sections. It took me five minutes to figure out one student wrote _the bacchae,_ not  _taboo cheese.”_

Clarke snorts. “What kind of cheese do you think is the most taboo?”

“ _Clarke.”_

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, idly stroking a hand over his bicep. “But at least you’re finished with them now.” When she finds yet another tight muscle, she digs her thumb in until it spasms and releases; Bellamy gasps a little and presses his forehead against her stomach. 

“You okay?” she asks, and feels more than sees him nod. 

“Feels good,” he mumbles, nuzzling against her until he’s wiggled her shirt out of the way and his nose is nudging her bare skin. Then he presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss just below her navel and Clarke’s own stomach muscles spasm as she inhales sharply. 

“Bellamy?”

“I’ve been grading exams for three days straight,” he says, the words muffled because he refuses to move his mouth off of her. “And you’ve been working on your thesis project whenever I’ve taken a break. We haven’t been able to relax in  _days._ ”

“It–It’s almost April,” she manages to say. Then his tongue swipes across her skin and her hands go back to his hair. “And I–I need to finish my project before my–um, before my defense next month.”

“You’re not working on it now,” he replies with a little nibble, and Clarke’s hands grip his hair a little tighter. 

“No,” she says faintly. “I’m ahead on it.”

He laughs against her belly. “That’s my princess.”

“You know–” Clarke falters a little when the stubble on his cheeks rasps against her. “You know our plan. This year you finish your-your PhD. And, um, I finish my MFA program.”

Clarke’s somewhat impressed by how many words she’s still managed to get out while Bellamy busies himself with her body. 

“I’d say we’re right on schedule with that plan,” Bellamy replies. “But I have a different plan in mind right now.”

“Yeah?” Clarke asks faintly. “What is it?”

In a few rapid motions, Bellamy pushes himself up and off of her, slides to the ground until he’s kneeling in front of her and his torso is leaning against her shins.  

“It starts something like this,” he says, eyes dark and fixed on hers as his fingers curl into the waistband of her leggings. “Sound good to you?” Clarke can feel the flush that’s creeping over her face and her chest, and all she does is nod.

He tugs and she lifts her hips, and when the waistband of her panties peeks out he pulls those down her body along with the leggings. 

Bellamy tosses her clothes to the side, and they knock over the stack of graded exams but he doesn’t seem to mind, so Clarke doesn’t care either. Then he pushes her thighs apart until one knee is hooked over the arm of the couch; the other is over Bellamy’s shoulder, and he grips her thigh with one hand to hold it in place.  

“Are you sure?” Clarke gets out. “You seemed–” 

She means to say  _You seemed like you were sore from grading,_ but Bellamy’s tongue dragging determinedly against her makes it a little hard to finish her sentence. 

He pulls away a little and rubs his cheek against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Clarke grabs the arm of the sofa with one hand and scrabbles for a hold against the couch cushion with the other. 

It’s rare that Bellamy lets himself develop any substantial facial hair, and that means that when he  _does_ , well, Clarke likes it. A lot. Something like  _absence makes the heart grow fonder_ , except, well. Not exactly the heart, this time.  

Clarke’s tried not to let him find out, but when Bellamy deliberately nuzzles his cheek against her skin again, she slowly realizes that he already knows.

So she lets herself whimper the next time he moves, and it seems to be what he was waiting for because he stops and puts his mouth back between her legs. 

She’s so wet it would be embarrassing except for Bellamy’s appreciative noises and the burning gaze that meets hers while she watches him with hooded eyes. When she tries to look away, to close her eyes, he nips her thigh and her eyes fly back open with a squeak. 

Not being able to look away, watching while he licks and nibbles and sucks and hums, feeling the stubble against her flesh–her orgasm boils up rapidly until her legs are trembling and her head is dizzy on dreams and she can’t stop herself from letting go of the couch and grabbing his head instead, winding her fingers through his hair as he brings her back down with gentle kisses to her clit. 

When even those careful presses create too many sparks of sensation for her to handle, Clarke lets go of him and he pulls away. 

“Good?” he asks, wiping a hand over his mouth and chin. 

“Really?” she says dryly. “You have to ask me?” She gestures at her prone body, the way her t-shirt is sticking damply to her skin.

Bellamy shrugs with a grin, and he sneaks a gentle pinch to her clit. Clarke’s whole body flinches, but even though she’s almost uncomfortably sensitive she can’t help the little groan that slips out because–well, because it’s Bellamy, and it’s impossible for her  _not_ to want him. 

He stands up abruptly, but Clarke’s able to gather enough presence of mind to turn until she’s lying along the couch instead of sitting half off of it, and she pulls off her shirt at the same moment he drags his pants and boxers off, hopping on one foot as they get stuck. 

“Come on, come  _on_ ,” she urges, beckoning for him to hurry and get  _closer_ , and he mutters  _fuck_ under his breath when she moves her legs so one foot is dangling to the floor, the other leg held high so that her heel finds purchase against the top of the couch. 

The sofa is long, but not deep, and when Bellamy lowers himself on top of her, he has to slide his arms almost completely under her back in order to prop himself up. Clarke doesn’t mind; she’s always not-so-secretly liked being caged in by him like this.

He kisses her for the first time since this started, and the taste of her in his mouth and the rasp of his face against hers has her winding her arms around his back in return. He groans but lets her pull him closer until his cock is nudging against her still-sensitive skin. 

“Come on,” she repeats, whispering against his lips. He slants his mouth over hers and presses into her at the same time, his fingers flexing against her back and holding her close. When he’s as far inside her as he can be, Clarke moves her legs until they’re wrapped tightly around his hips, and Bellamy pulls mouth away from hers so he can bury it in her neck with another low curse. 

Lingering sparks of pleasure are still skittering through her, and when he starts rocking his hips against hers she can’t help but cry out. At the sound of her voice his hips snap harder, and her fingers dig into the flesh of his back with every movement. 

Through the heat and bliss rapidly spreading through her limbs from where they’re connected, it takes Clarke a moment to realize that the word she can feel Bellamy saying over and over into her neck is her own name. Each time it’s quicker, more broken, and just as her name becomes a plea from his lips and his rhythm stutters as he comes, Clarke wiggles one hand in between them to rub tight, rapid circles on her clit. In seconds, she’s falling apart and clenching around him, and it’s Bellamy’s turn to tense and let out a long groan when it proves almost too much for his overstimulated body. 

“Jesus, Clarke,” he says hoarsely. Clarke closes her eyes and tries to catch her breath as she smooths her hands over his spine. Her body feels easy and liquid, and his muscles are similarly loose. 

“Jesus, Bellamy,” she snarks back, her voice only getting a little high-pitched at the end as he slips out and sits up with a groan.

She grins at him as he takes her hands to pull her up. “Relaxed enough for you?” she asks as he slumps bonelessly back against the couch and tugs at her until she leans into him. 

She tucks her head under his chin, her ear pressed to his chest and listening to the slowly calming beat of his heart, and he snorts even as his hands gently twine strands of her hair around his fingers. 

“Nope,” he slurs around a yawn. “We’re probably going to have to try this whole relaxing thing again soon.” 

“Oh yeah? Is that the new plan?” she asks, letting her eyes drift closed as she snuggles closer to him. 

“You bet your ass, princess.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am shamefully smutty Bellarke trash sorry sorry sorry. Let me know your thoughts!


	3. Snapchat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From sadgirlokay on tumblr: "My friend thought you were cute so she tried to take a picture of you for snapchat and her flash went off but when you looked our way she shoved her phone into my hands and nOW YOU THINK IT’S ME AND OH GOD PLS DON’T BE MAD”

Clarke's got her nose in a paperback copy of  _Pride and Prejudice_ while she waits in line with Raven at the campus bookstore. It's the first week of the new spring quarter and there's a line of students wrapping throughout the whole building and down the stairs, all of them hoping beyond hope that they'll get through the check-out line before they're late for their next class.

Clarke ordered her textbooks from the cheaper online vendors weeks ago, but Raven guilted her into accompanying her to the bookstore when she reminded Clarke that she had ditched their spring break plans.

("I had the flu!" Clarke had protested.

Raven didn't care.

"You want me to remind you who took your spot in the group, Clarke?"

"Not really," Clarke had said, "considering you already complained about him to me for the last five hours."

" _Kyle Wick_ , Clarke. I had to hike in the woods with  _Wick._ For  _days_."

"And Sterling, and Mel, and a bunch of our other friends," Clarke reminded her.

"And  _Wick_ ," Raven had snarled, color high in her cheeks.)

They've been in line for nearly an hour, and thankfully they're almost at the front, but Clarke's not all that sure why Raven insisted she come along. The other girl has been preoccupied with something on her phone basically the entire time they've been waiting together––she hasn't even yelled at Clarke about reading a book while they're supposed to be hanging out.

"Clarke!" Raven hisses. "Look at how hot that cashier is!"

Clarke glances up from Mr. Darcy's first ill-mannered meeting with Elizabeth Bennet, follows Raven's not-so-discreet pointing. The guy she's indicating  _is_ pretty cute, all tan skin and dark messy hair and bone structure Clarke would  _love_ to sketch. But…

"He'd be cuter if he took that nasty look off his face," she replies, and returns to her book as they shuffle forward in line. There are only a couple people in between them and the check-out stands, and even as Clarke watches the second, nicer-looking cashier waves them forward.

"Hey, stand in front of me a little, okay?" Raven says, shoving lightly at Clarke until she sighs and moves up a little. "Wick is going to be  _pissed_ when I snapchat a picture of this guy to him."

Raven stands behind Clarke to hide as she takes the shot, and Clarke frowns.

"Wait," Clarke begins, "why are you snapchatting Kyle if you're still so pissed about going hiking with him––?"

Raven's phone takes the picture with a blindingly bright flash just as the hot cashier starts to turn toward them, gesturing for the next customer.

"Shit," Raven squeaks, and drops the stack of textbooks she's been waiting to purchase; just before the cashier looks directly at them, she shoves her phone at Clarke, who barely manages to catch it in her hands.

" _Next_ ," the cashier bites out, now glaring at her, and Clarke gulps, all-too-aware of the phone she's still holding in her hands.

Raven hurriedly finishes grabbing her books and heads for him, and Clarke trails after her, nervously tapping the phone against her book.

Her friend dumps her supplies on the counter and the cashier automatically starts to scan the books, but he won't stop glaring at Clarke. To avoid his gaze, she looks down at the phone in her hand. It's started to dim, but it's not locked, and a quick tap has the screen brightening again. Clarke immediately swipes over to the messages app, and her earlier suspicions are confirmed––the most recent conversation is between Raven Reyes and Kyle Wick.

She snorts, tapping the phone so she can snoop around in their conversation while Raven pays for her supplies.

"Delete that," a low voice demands hotly, and Clarke glances up. The hot, angry looking cashier is still directing his lethal gaze straight at her.

"Delete what?" she echoes. Raven's digging around in her wallet for her debit card, but Clarke notices her movements slow as she takes in the standoff happening between Clarke and the cashier.

"I saw the flash," he retorts. "I'm not an idiot. Delete the picture of me you just took."

She's vaguely aware of Raven slowly swiping her card through the machine and starting to load her books into her backpack, but she can't look away from the guy.

His name-tag reads  _Bellamy B,_ and angry is, unfortunately, a really good look for him. He's leaning forward over the counter, glaring at her, and now that he's up close and personal she suddenly notices the freckles that are dusted all over his face and down his neck. She wonders if  _all_ of his skin is freckled, or if not, how far down they go.

"I didn't take a picture of you," she denies, and he raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah? Then let me see your phone." He holds out his hand expectantly. Clarke opens her mouth and turns to tell Raven to explain, but Raven's disappeared. She can just make out Raven's dark ponytail ducking out of the bookstore.

_Seriously, Raven?_

"Um," Clarke says, a blush blooming in her cheeks as she tries to remember if Raven had actually managed to take the picture. But she had left the app too quickly, and she has no idea what he'll find if she hands the phone over.

So instead, she tries to explain.

"Well, you see,  _I_ didn't take a picture of you. My friend did."

"Your friend?" His voice is skeptical. "Right."

"No, it's true!" she says. "She was the one who just bought all of the engineering textbooks. This is her phone. See?" Clarke holds up Raven's phone so he can see what the protective case says:  _Get in losers, we're going to do science._

"I'm terrible at science," she adds earnestly, and waves her novel at him. "I almost failed chemistry in high school. Clarke Griffin: Books. Art. That's me. No science. Honestly, what even is science? I don't even know."

For the first time, he cracks a smile, and the way it transforms his face––well, if Clarke would have loved to draw him scowling, she just might kill to draw him smiling. She smiles hesitantly back.

"Well, Clarke Griffin––" he starts to say, but he's interrupted.

"Get a room or get going, blondie!"

They both turn and look back at the line of students; an irritated-looking guy with a frat t-shirt, red eyes, and a greenish complexion is the next in line, and he's motioning at them to hurry up.

"We've all got shit to buy," he says. Clarke decides that Bellamy B. is really the only one who can pull off an attractive scowl; this other guy just looks constipated as well as hungover.

"Can I see that phone now?" Bellamy B. asks abruptly, ignoring Frat Guy. Clarke looks at him in surprise––does he really care about the snapchat thing?––but hands it over.

But all he does is press the home button so that the phone lights up.

"Three o'clock," he says in a satisfied tone, and hands it back to her. "My shift is over."

He pulls off the name tag and shoves it in his pocket, grabs his phone and wallet from where they were apparently stashed under the counter, and then calls over his shoulder to the harried girl he was working with.

"Maya, I'm out! You good here?"

A chorus of angry mutters erupt from the waiting line as they realize one of the two cashiers on duty is about to leave, but the other girl just waves him away.

"Get out of here before they riot, Blake," she says. "Jasper's going to be here in fifteen."

Clarke watches as he nods and hops over the counter instead of lifting up the divider and walking out like a normal person. He lands right in front of her, and he seems even taller when he's this close.

"You should probably head out, too, Clarke Griffin, or they might just burn you at the stake," he tells her. "Luring me away from my post and all."

Clarke raises her eyebrows. "I'm  _luring_ you away?"

(It's not that she would  _mind_ luring him, now that he's not snarling at her and is actually still looking at her with that smile she likes so much. She just hasn't made the effort yet.)

"Absolutely," he tells her. "Probably to the coffee shop, so we can talk about why you have your friend's phone, and about books and art and not-science."

"Oh, really?" she says, unable to keep the grin from her face or the pink from her cheeks.

"That's just the vibe I'm getting," Bellamy replies. "I could be wrong, though." He looks a little nervous, and if Angry-Bellamy is hot, and Smiling-Bellamy is divine, Nervous-Bellamy is downright adorable.

"No," Clarke says. "I think you're probably right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keeping things drabble length is hard. I'm obviously not good at it. Oh well! Let me know your thoughts. :)


	4. Partners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "43. Bellarke: falling in love with their best friend's partner (like police partner maybe)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know NOTHING about being a cop. Also, this prompt also inspired a much longer oneshot that you can check out if you'd like: The Provenance of Griffin-Blakes.

Clarke’s known Bellamy Blake for four years now, ever since he was partnered with Raven. 

She’s been in love with him for three.

_Not_ that she’s told him that. 

He drives her up the  _wall_ , and always has, ever since that first  _princess_ slipped out of his mouth when they met. That first year, it seemed like he brought a different girl with him every time their group of friends met up for drinks. 

He stopped bringing them after a while, but Clarke’s still not sure how she managed to develop  _feelings_ for the idiot when he always seemed to have his tongue down some other woman’s throat. 

That’s a lie. She knows exactly when and how. 

It was when Raven was shot during what was supposed to be a routine visit to a suspect’s house for questioning. They’d only been partners for ten months, and didn’t have a fraction of the rapport that some of the more seasoned partners in their precinct did, but Bellamy didn’t hesitate. When given the choice, he let the suspect get away and instead held Raven in his arms until the paramedics got there. Once she was on her way to the hospital, he called Clarke and told her what happened.

“He got her in the back, Clarke,” he had told her. “But she’s still breathing.”

One of her biggest fears ever since Raven entered the police academy was that her best friend would be hurt, or killed, and Clarke wouldn’t find out until it was too late. Somehow, Bellamy had found that out, and instead he made sure that she was the first to know that Raven was going to be okay. 

After that, Raven wasn’t the only cop Clarke worried about.

And now, he’s gone and proved her worry justified. 

“You stupid idiot,” she whispers to him even as she strokes the back of his hand with her thumb. “ _I_ could have told you he’d have a weapon stashed somewhere.” 

Any lower, the doctor had said, and the knife would have slipped straight between the ribs instead of hitting bone and stopping short of anything vital.

Any lower and he would have died. 

As it is, the stab wound was enough to slow him and allow the attacker to slam his head into a brick wall. The combination of the two injuries is enough to have him in a hospital bed at least overnight.  

“Clarke?” Raven calls softly from the doorway. “I’m going to head out. You need anything?” To her credit, she doesn’t question the way Clarke is clinging to Bellamy’s hand, or that Clarke makes no move to follow Raven home. Clarke wouldn’t be surprised if  _everyone_ except for Bellamy Idiot Blake knew about her feelings for him. 

“No, I’m good,” Clarke replies. “I’m going to stick around for a while.”

“I’ll bring you some food in the morning,” Raven replies. “Try to get some rest, okay?” She glances at Bellamy one more time and then closes the door quietly behind her. 

His hand is cooler in hers than she’d like, cooler than she remembers from those times they danced at the precinct’s Christmas parties, cooler than she remembers from that time they all went hiking together in the mountains, and she slipped on loose dirt and he caught her around the waist before she could fall, palm burning against her skin where her top had ridden up. Cooler than Bellamy Blake’s hand has any right to be. 

“Stupid,” she mumbles again, and closes her eyes against the treacherous sting of tears.

“Who’re you callin’ stupid,” she hears, and she opens her eyes to see Bellamy smiling crookedly at her, eyelids drooping as he struggles to watch her. 

“You,” she says, making no effort to hide the shaking of her voice. “You’re the stupidest man on the face of the planet, and I want to know what I did in another life to get stuck with you.”

“Aw, come on, princess,” he slurs. “That’s not nice.”

“I don’t care,” she says. “It’s the truth.” 

His fingers tighten around hers, and she can’t help but let out a tremulous sigh. The doctor had told her he was just resting, that neither of his injuries were in any way life-threatening, but until Bellamy opened his eyes and talked to her, she couldn’t quite believe him.

“Sorry,” he says. He’s opening and closing his eyes with slow, heavy blinks. “But y’know you love me.” 

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees, heart in her throat. “Unfortunately, I do.”

“Really?” he asks, his eyes staying closed now. “Good.”

That surprises a laugh out of Clarke. “Good?” she echoes. “Why good?”

“Good, ’cause I love you too,” he sighs, and slips back into sleep with a silly little grin on his lips that matches the one spreading across Clarke’s face. 


	5. Chocolate Volcano

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Can you do the chocolate volcano prompt with bellarke?" 
> 
> AKA “im a bartender and you just came in here without shoes sat down and ordered a chocolate volcano and idk what the fuck that is and im scared to ask” au

He doesn’t notice her when she walks through the door, not immediately, but he absolutely notices her when Miller taps him on the arm and nods to a pair of women who have just started heading toward the bar.

“What do you think her deal is?” Miller asks. At first, Bellamy doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. They look like a normal enough duo of women, a blonde and a brunette all decked out in sparkly clothes and heavy-looking necklaces. But then he sees it––the brunette is towering over the blonde in her high heels, while the blonde is striding along in completely bare feet. The blonde’s not even carrying her shoes in her hands, like some women do when they’re leaving the bar at the end of the night, and she doesn’t have a bag big enough to stow shoes in.

She just…doesn’t have shoes. At all.

And it doesn’t look like she cares, either, because her eyes are bright and her smile is nearly blinding when she laughs at something her friend says. 

“Hi!” she says, sliding onto a stool right across from Bellamy, her friend taking a seat to her right. Miller gestures that he’s going to cover the other end of the bar and retreats.

“Evening,” Bellamy replies, hiding his grin. “What can I get you?” 

“Martini with a twist,” the brunette says. As he grabs the gin, he raises an eyebrow at the blonde.

“For you?” he asks. 

The brunette elbows the blonde in the side with a snicker. 

“I would like a chocolate volcano,” the blonde says decisively. 

Bellamy stares at her. “A chocolate volcano?” he echoes. What the  _fuck_ is a chocolate volcano? 

Grounders is known for its generous ratios of alcohol to mixers, its extensive variety of beers on tap, and for hosting the only weekly Retro Night in town that manages to actually turn a profit. 

It is  _not_ a bar known for fancy, frilly, or freaky sounding drinks. But the look on the blonde’s face is hopeful and her eyes are a luminous blue and he doesn’t really want to tell her no. 

She nods sharply. “Chocolate volcano,” she drawls, stretching out the last ‘O’ in a way he’s embarrassed to realize he likes (a lot). “Hit me, alcohol man.” She punctuates her request with a smack to the bar, and the brunette snorts.

“Well, I’m a bartender, not a blackjack dealer, and you can call me Bellamy,” he says as he turns his back and surreptitiously pulls his phone out of his pocket. “But I’ll do my best,” he adds skeptically, clicking the first google result:  _chocolate lava volcano cocktail drink._

“Thanks, Bellamy,” she says. “I’m Clarke, and this is Raven.”

It calls for chocolate ice cream––seriously, this is a  _bar_ , he doesn’t keep fucking chocolate  _ice cream_ hidden behind the Fireball––so he improvises to the best of his ability. He mixes a couple of different liqueurs with an ample amount of vodka, shakes it with ice, pours it into a chilled martini glass, and hopes for a miracle when he sets it in front of her.

“One chocolate volcano,” he says, and watches her out of the corner of his eye while he hands the martini to Raven.

Clarke takes a sip, and then to his relief she raises her eyebrows in surprise and takes another big gulp.

“Yummy,” she says. 

Her friend takes a healthy sip of her own cocktail, taps Clarke on the shoulder, and points at Bellamy. He’s slightly alarmed by the smirk that crosses her lips, and the widening of Clarke’s eyes in response. 

“Really?” Clarke asks, cheeks faintly pink.

“Really,” Raven responds. “Catch you on the flip side, Clarke.” She slides off her stool and saunters off to flirt with a blond man at the other end of the room.

He and Clarke are left staring at each other across the bar. Bellamy's grateful that Wednesdays are never very busy, and he doesn’t have to leave her to go serve other patrons. 

“So,” he says. “Chocolate volcano your signature drink or something?” 

She snorts. Fuck, even that’s cute when she does it.

“I lost a bet with my friend,” she admits, and his interest is piqued.

“What about?” he asks, propping his elbows on the bar and leaning forward. 

He’s strangely charmed when Clarke stares down at her drink, avoiding his eyes. “About whether or not it’s canon in the  _Harry Potter_ series that muggle technology doesn’t work around magic.” She mumbles the words, but Bellamy gets every single one.

“I see.” He pauses. “It’s canon. Right there in  _Hogwarts, a History._ ” Her head pops up, and he grins at the expression on her face as she realizes that he may or may not be as well-versed in the  _Harry Potter_ series as she apparently is. 

They came out while O was growing up and she insisted that they read every single one together. He  _may_ have read them again on his own. Once or twice.

“See, that’s what  _I_ said!” she exclaims. “But then Raven argued that  _Hogwarts, a History_ only refers to Hogwarts grounds, and I couldn’t definitively say that technology doesn’t work around any magical place.”

“I guess I’ve never thought about that,” he says. “Seems like a technicality, though.” 

“A technicality that meant Raven won,” Clarke says, and swallows the last of the crazy cocktail. 

“So what did she win?” Bellamy asks. 

“I had to complete three tasks of her choosing tonight, or else pay her the equivalent of ten galleons.”

“Let me guess,” Bellamy says. “First task: you go out without shoes.”

Clarke laughs. “Yeah. First she tried to get me to go out with no shirt, but thankfully I convinced her that would be more illegal than funny. So, shoes.”

Bellamy does his best not to imagine Clarke topless instead of shoeless, but it doesn’t work very well. To distract himself from thoughts of her smooth, creamy skin being revealed, he keeps talking.

“The second task––a crazy drink order, right?”

Clarke nods. “Raven picked the drink. I was impressed with what you came up with,” she says, gesturing at her empty glass. “I have no idea what the hell a chocolate volcano even is.”

“What’s the third task?” he asks. 

Her lips curl up into a smile at the same time her hand reaches out and curls into the collar of his shirt. 

“This,” she says.

“Um,” is all he manages to get out before she’s yanking him forward and planting her lips on his. It’s a little awkward, leaning over the bar, but her mouth is shockingly cold and sweet and he can’t help the needy little groan he makes in the back of his throat when she opens her lips and traces his tongue with her own.

“I don’t think that’s very sanitary behavior,” he hears Miller say dryly, and he doesn’t even bother to stop kissing Clarke as he offers Miller a middle finger. 

Eventually, they  _have_  to pull apart to breathe, and Clark’s hooded eyes and flushed skin and swollen mouth have him swallowing hard as warmth pools in his stomach.

“That was for the bet,” she reminds him, and he hopes his face doesn’t fall like his heart does. “I had to kiss the person Raven pointed at.”

(It was a  _damn_ good kiss, and it just won’t be fair if that’s the only one he’s ever going to get from her.)

“Oh,” he says lamely, and then her fingers slide from his collar until they’re cupping the back of his neck.

“This one’s just because,” she tells him, and when she kisses him again, he’s the one who’s smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't have access to my _Harry Potter_ books while I was writing this, so I couldn't double-check the thing about magic+muggle technology. Let's just roll with it, 'kay? They're both huge nerds and that's the important part. Let me know your thoughts! Every one is appreciated.


	6. Runescape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From sadgirlokay on tumblr: “we both play this stupid game online and you keep beating me every single goddamn time so i called you out and you are pretty cute but can you not”

It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, a holdover from her middle school days. But sometimes when Clarke needs a break from work, she’s just not in the mood for yoga or reading or watching hair tutorials on YouTube. So at those times, she packs up her laptop, heads to the internet café down the street, and settles into one of the comfiest chairs in The Dripship for a well-deserved Runescape break. 

She’s had the same screenname since she was thirteen and her computer class partner showed her how to get past the school’s embarrassingly weak firewall and introduced her to the game. 

(That was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship with Monty Green, but that’s a story for a different time.)

Now, whenever the paint and the canvas and her brushes just don’t want to cooperate, she quells her frustration and clears her mind with a couple rounds of combat in the Wilderness. The player vs. player zone was the perfect place for her to start leveling up when she got tired of killing off imps for practice, and Clarke’s gotten pretty good at kicking ass and taking names, if she says so herself. After a decade on the game, she can take out pretty much anyone she wants to.

Except him. 

Today Clark’s logged into Runescape because her landscape is coming out more of a bloody desert than a gentle sunrise, and goddamned Cerberus2126 has just ambushed her in the Wilderness.

_Again._

It’s like he fucking waits for her to enter the pvp zone just so he can target her. He’s killed her no fewer than forty-seven times since he dropped out of the sky a few weeks ago, and she’s taken to keeping all but her most used items in the bank so he can’t take her shit when he kills her.

 _Seriously_ , why does he always try to kill her? She’s killed him a few times, too, but only because those times  _she_ was the one doing the ambushing. But it’s usually Cerberus2126 launching at her out of nowhere and Clarke battling for her life.

Clarke scowls as her health levels rapidly deplete and attacks back, typing one-handed in the chat bar while her fingers fly over the trackpad. 

_**Princessery:** back OFF, cerberus_

_**Cerberus2126:**  last i checked, i don’t take orders from you, princess_

That’s another thing that pisses her off. He never gets her screenname right. It’s literally  _right there on the screen_ , but he insists on pissing her off. For some reason, he’s made it his life’s mission to rile her up, and for what? A token moment of amusement over the internet?

Clarke growls at her computer when he scores another big hit. “What’s  _wrong with you_?” she hisses at the avatar that’s currently bashing hers with a sword. 

“Mind keeping it down?” she hears. She risks a glance to her right, where another regular sits in his usual spot. His fingers are busily moving over his own keyboard, and she guesses from the familiar Ark University hoodie he’s got on that he’s working on a paper or something. Grad student, probably, given the fact that he looks a good handful of years older than she is. 

“Sorry,” she says, feeling a little guilty about disrupting him; his dark eyes flicker to hers and they crinkle at the corners a bit when he offers her a little grin. 

“No problem,” he replies, and then punctuates his words with a particular hard tap to his keyboard. 

Just then, Cerberus2126 kills her. Kills her absolutely dead, and Clarke’s lost all but her three most valuable items from her inventory. 

True, all he does end up getting from her is a cooked chicken, a couple of spare helmets, and a log, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

Her avatar respawns elsewhere, and the second she does, she opens a private chat with Cerberus2126.

_**Princessery:** what’s your problem??_

_**Cerberus2126:**  i’m pretty sure you’re the one with the problem, seeing as i just killed you for the forty-eighth time  
_

_**Cerberus2126:**  maybe you need more practice_

Clarke lets out a wordless growl of frustration. 

_**Princessery:**  or MAYBE you could stop being an ASSHAT_

The guy sitting next to her snorts at something, and she’s briefly distracted by the way he’s smirking at the screen, one corner of his mouth quirked up and his entire face oh-so-drawable. 

The freckles alone would take her  _ages_ to get right. But she’s always liked a challenge, she thinks. (And, okay, maybe it’s not the first time she’s noticed him at The Dripship. He’s there just as often as she is, and it’s hard to miss that hair and those cheekbones and that  _jaw_. God, that jaw.)

And then he looks directly at her, catches her  _looking_ at him and she whips her head back to gaze determinedly at her laptop screen. Her cheeks burn while she notices that Cerberus2126 has said nothing while she’s been distracted, and Clarke sighs.

She doesn’t really feel like heading back into the Wilderness right now, and she’s also just humiliated herself with the ridiculously hot freckled guy after weeks of keeping her interest in him on the down low, so Clarke takes Cerberus2126′s murder of her as a sign to pack things up for the day. 

She closes her laptop, slips her things into her bag, and stands to leave. The direct path to the door is blocked by some long-haired idiot who’s brought his bicycle into the actual café and leaned it up against his table, so Clarke has to backtrack and wind around the back of the shop to get to the exit. 

As she skirts behind hot freckled guy’s chair, she glances down and stops dead when she sees his computer screen. It’s a familiar view, all pixelated trees and people, and Clarke can’t quite believe her eyes. Hot freckled guy is most definitely  _not_ working on a paper.

“You play Runescape?” she finds herself blurting out; he startles in his seat and tilts his head back so he can see her. Clarke blames her fascination with his jaw for the fact that she notices the minute movement of his throat as he realizes she’s behind him. 

“Uh,” he says. “No.” He shifts a little in his seat, and Clarke frowns. 

“I can see it on your screen,” she replies. “Like, right there.”

His hands go to close the lid to his laptop, but before he can hide the screen, Clarke sees it. Down in the bottom of the screen, in the chat box, his username.

Fucking  _Cerberus2126_. 

Clarke’s aware that her mouth has dropped open and that hot freckled guy–– _asshat freckled guy_ ––is standing and shoving his things into his own backpack.

“Oh my god!” she exclaims, rounding the chair until she’s right in front of him. “You asshole, this is how you always knew when to ambush me!” 

When she pokes him in the chest to punctuate her words, he looks sheepish and offers her a grin that reminds her of the way Wells looked when they were both six and he told her he broke her plastic stethoscope. 

It’s not right that such a little-boy-grin can look so hot on a grown man’s face, but Clarke doesn’t allow herself to be distracted by it. 

(Much.)

“Come on, princess, it’s not that big a deal,” he says. “Just a little friendly fun.”

“Okay, first, I don’t even know your name,” she says. “Second, friends don’t murder friends forty-eight times.”

“My name’s Bellamy,” he says, and when she tries to poke him the chest again he instead seizes her hand in his, giving it a firm shake.

“It’s polite to tell me your name back, princess,” he tells her, and she narrows her eyes at him.  _He_ is going to tell  _her_ what’s  _polite_?

“Forty. Eight. Times,” she reminds him, ignoring her tingling palm. “I can’t believe you game-stalked me!”

Bellamy looks a little panicked at that. “I wouldn’t say  _stalked_ ,”he saysquickly, nervously.

Clarke hides her smile and crosses her arms over her chest. 

“I saw you playing a while ago and thought it might be fun to try and find you in the game,” Bellamy says. “Which, as I say it now, sounds a little stalkerish. But I swear, it was just for fun, playing with another player I could see. And then I just…got kind of carried away.” He trails off and looks at her with a pleading expression. 

“Kind of?” she echoes dryly. 

“I  _am_  sorry,” he says, his voice genuinely contrite now. “Can I––Can I make it up to you somehow?”

“How are you going to make up for killing me forty-eight times?” Clarke asks skeptically. 

“Dinner?” he asks. “To start?”

“Oh,” Clarke replies. The smile on his face wavers a little at her surprise, but he keeps watching her expectantly, waiting for her answer. 

“My name’s Clarke,” she says eventually, and his face lights up with another one of those adorable grins. “And you  _do_ owe me a cooked chicken.”

“That’s just today’s loot, princess,” Bellamy says. “If you add up all the inventory I ever stole from you, it’ll take me ages to make everything up to you.”

She smiles when he gestures for her to precede him out of the café.

“Then I guess you’d better get started.”

* * *

He doesn’t ever stop ambushing her in the game, but he doesn’t stop making it up to her either. And, Clarke discovers, Bellamy Blake is  _very_ good at making things up to her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one kind of kicked my butt! Fun, though, and I hope Bellamy didn't come off as a creeper. ;)


	7. Boulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "'Bellamy, what did you do to your hand?' 'There was a boulder trapping you.' 'And you tried to fight it?'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a vague and optimistic canon-divergent future because of obvious reasons.

The old  _Trigedakru_ trap that Clarke’s stuck in this time is even more impressive than the spiked pit she nearly fell into when they went looking for Jasper, way back when they first got to the ground.

This one’s not immediately deadly, a fact for which Clarke is grateful. Instead, she’s just  _literally_ trapped in a little pit, the entrance blocked by a substantial boulder. Clarke started trying to get it to budge ever since she toppled into the trap and the boulder came crashing behind her, but with no luck. 

She can hear Monty and Miller outside, and every now and then she can just hear an indistinct word or a grunt as they try from their side of the trap. She hasn’t heard Monroe since just after Clarke was able to make enough noise for the others to know she was still alive and unhurt. They’ve probably sent her for help; Monroe’s the fastest of the three.

Clarke wishes she could tell Miller and Monty to stop trying to get her out, to keep searching for the stupid plant the four of them came all the way out here to find, because there’s no way in hell just the two of them are going to get her out and they might as well do something useful. 

She hears voices again, but this time she straightens up as best as she’s able in the tiny little pit.

She’d know his voice anywhere. 

There are other new voices, murmuring in the background, but it’s his she focuses on, barking out orders that she can’t make out and he’s close _, so close_ on the other side of the trap.

“Bellamy,” she says, though she knows he can’t hear her through the boulder unless she screams, and presses a palm to the rock; she can feel the vibrations through the stone as they do something to it on the other side. 

“Clarke!” is the first thing she hears clearly when the trap is finally breached and light pours into the tiny pit. Clarke stands, stretching her legs for the first time in hours, but before she can call up to her rescue party, strong arms reach down and haul her out.

She stumbles into him when he sets her on her feet, but Bellamy’s too distracted with checking her for injury to care. 

“You alright?” he asks, hands stroking from her neck to her arms and down to her wrists. Behind him, she can see the others packing up the equipment they used to pry the boulder out of its spot. Monroe gives her a little nod, her cheeks still flushed from running, and Clarke smiles before turning her attention back to Bellamy. 

“A little wobbly. Pins and needles in my legs. But I’m fine, Bellamy,” Clarke says. She lets him prod her for a few more moments, knowing she would be doing the same thing if  _he_ had been the one stuck in a trap for hours. 

“Hey,” she says when he doesn’t stop. “I’m  _fine._ ” She bats his hands away, and he makes a strangled little noise and puts a hand behind his back.

“Yeah,” he says in an odd tone. “Sorry. I’m glad you’re okay.” 

Clarke eyes him, and he lifts his gaze to the sky.

“We should probably get going,” he notes. “It’ll get dark soon.” 

“Right...” Clarke says slowly. “Bellamy, what did you do to your hand?”

“Nothing,” he says, wiggling his left hand in front of her face. She rolls her eyes and pulls at his arm until he reveals his right hand.

“Bellamy!” she exclaims, grabbing his fingers in hers. He lets out a hiss and tries to jerk it away from her, but she doesn’t let go. Instead she just shifts her grip to his wrist so she’s not hurting him. 

“The pinky’s broken for sure,” she says, examining the swelling and bloodied fingers. “What did you do?”

He sighs, then winces when she prods his middle finger gently. 

“There was a boulder trapping you,” he mutters.

Clarke pauses to stare at him. “And you tried to fight it?” she asked. He looks away from her, shoulders stiff, and she tries to keep quiet.

But the laughter bubbles up and out of her throat, and the woods echo with her giggles.

“Screw you, Clarke,” Bellamy says, trying again to pry his hand out of her hold. 

“Hey, hey,” she says in surprise, her brow furrowing. “What’s going on with you?” She doesn’t let go of him still, and traces her thumb back and forth over the back of his hand––the only uninjured part of it. 

“Bellamy. Look at me,” she coaxes, and finally he does. The fear and anger and anguish on his face makes her breath catch in her lungs, and she steps closer to him automatically. “What is it?”

His dark eyes don’t leave hers, and his voice is rough when he tells her, “Monroe could barely breathe when she ran into camp. At first I thought she was saying you were dead.” 

Clarke has to close her own eyes, all humor gone from her now. She knows what it feels like to think Bellamy’s dead. If he felt anything like that, even if only for a moment, she’s not going to laugh at him for it. 

She leans forward, rests her forehead against his sternum. “I’m sorry,” she says. She can feel Bellamy breathe in, feel him sigh as he carefully pulls his hand away from hers so he can wrap his arms around her and hold her tight to him. Her own hands find their way around his waist. 

“I’m alright now,” she tells him, breathing in the scent of woodsmoke and metal that clings to him. Clarke feels him press a kiss against her hair. 

“Yeah,” Bellamy says. “I’m alright now, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts! :D
> 
> If anyone wants to join me ~~on tumblr~~ [in my trash can](http://www.enoughtotemptme.tumblr.com)


	8. Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke's new neighbor is smart, charming, and handsome. Unfortunately she's also pretty sure he works for the local crime ring. Bellamy's falling for Clarke; unfortunately he's an undercover cop investigating her for ties to local crime ring."

Clarke should have sold her parents' house in the oldest, wealthiest suburb of Arkadia as soon as she inherited it. But with her parents both gone, it's all she had left of them, so she decides to keep living in the big old mansion at least until she finishes her residency at Arkadia Memorial.

And by the time she realizes that the Wallaces are moving in next door, it's too late to sell. No one wants to buy the house anymore, or any house in the neighborhood, and that's how Clarke gets stuck living next door to the biggest crime family in Arkadia.

She's mostly convinced herself it's not so bad, now finished with her residency and working as a general practitioner in the smaller clinic across town. In general they're quiet neighbors, and their yard is tidy. She keeps the shades closed at night so she's not an unwilling witness to something that would get her thrown into the witness protection program, or maybe killed. So, not all bad, she tells herself.

Clarke does have to interact with them a little bit, whenever she makes house calls to check on Maya's health. Cage's little sister is in remission, but still needs check-ups; Clarke counts herself grateful that Maya is the  _only_ patient Dante has insisted she see. She has no desire to become a mob doctor.

But Maya is sweet, and young, and Clarke is pretty positive that her brother and father keep her far away from any of their less-than-legal proceedings. That means that Clarke is kept away from them too, and the only "employees" of theirs she ever meets are the men who serve as Maya's bodyguards.

The newest one is the bane of her existence. All the others until now have been always older, always stoic, and always utterly unattractive to Clarke.

Bellamy is only a few years older than Clarke, he always has a smirk and a wink ready for her, and from the moment she first met him, Clarke has wanted nothing more than to jump his bones.

"Evening, princess," he greets her when she walks into Maya's room that day. It's time for Maya's monitor, and Clarke ignores him while she greets Maya and starts prepping her arm to draw a blood sample for the lab.

"Bellamy's been wondering where you've been," Maya tells her, not even wincing as Clarke slides the needle into her vein. "You're a little later than normal."

"Oh?" Clarke says, watching her hands and determinedly refusing to look at the devious little smile on Maya's face.

"Thought you might have seen another patient before Maya," Bellamy comments in his stupid, deep voice that never fails to turn Clarke into a tangle of need.

"I've told you before, Bellamy," Clarke says, concealing the waver of her voice with a sigh. "Maya is the  _only_  patient I see outside of work."

"You're a bleeding heart, princess," Bellamy drawls. "I find it hard to believe you wouldn't help anyone who needed it."

Reason number four Maya's newest bodyguard is the bane of her existence: he has never,  _ever_ called her by her name. It's always been  _princess_ , from the very start. You would  _think_  that a man who regularly tosses out allusions to classical mythology and can help Maya with her calculus homework would be capable of remembering her single syllable  _name,_ Clarke thinks.

"Why don't you ever stick around the house, princess?"

Apparently not. Clarke glances up at Bellamy as she unwraps the tourniquet from Maya's upper arm.

"I have no reason to stick around," she says, raising a brow. "Between Maya and my clinic, I barely have time to sleep, let alone waste time hanging out here when my own house is two minutes away."

She thinks she sees a flash of satisfaction, but his face is back in its usual smirk before she can say for sure.

"It's hardly wasting time if it's time spent with me," he says with a teasing grin, and when Maya giggles Clarke can't help but laugh a little, too.

"Nice try, but I'm pretty sure my pajamas and Netflix offer me a better time," Clarke retorts.

The expression on his face is delighted. "Well, I'll just have to work on changing your mind about that, won't I?"

Before Clarke can respond, his phone buzzes and he pulls it out of his pocket. Whatever the message says, he doesn't like, and his face is the face of a different man when he looks back at Maya.

"You two good for a minute?" he asks. "Your father needs me."

Maya nods and waves him away, and he doesn't spare them a second glance before he's out of the room, door shut behind him.

Clarke swallows, pushes away thoughts of what he's been summoned away by Dante to do, busies herself with wrapping Maya's elbow with a cotton ball and bright purple bandaging tape.

"I think he likes you, Clarke," Maya says with a knowing smile.

Clarke smiles back, though it fades quickly.

It doesn't––can't––matter if he does. It can't matter how much he makes her laugh, or feel, or  _want;_ Clarke Griffin could never let herself be with a man who lived the kind of life he does.

* * *

Clarke's supposed to check on Maya in two weeks, but she never gets the chance.

Instead, Maya's removed from the Wallaces' household and placed into protective custody until she can testify against her family's crime ring; Dante and Cage and dozens of others are arrested on countless charges; and Bellamy the bodyguard turns out to be Bellamy the undercover cop, not only investigating the Wallaces but investigating  _her_ , of all people, because she couldn't help but treat a sixteen-year-old girl.

Clarke was barricaded inside her house until the raid was over and an officer came to her home and explained. For a split second after Officer Miller's explanation, she'd been elated that the man she was halfway in love with wasn't a mobster. And then she had realized that the man she was halfway in love with was apparently a lie, a cover for his investigation.

Now that the street is quiet and all is supposed to be safe, Clarke's not inclined to be polite when she wrenches the door open in response to loud knocks at three in the morning.

" _What––_ Bellamy?" she demands as Bellamy nearly crashes into her.

He just stares at her for a minute, and it's both funny and painful that she still seems to be able to read the relief in his face and the tension in his shoulders.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," he says eventually, eyes still drinking her in.

"I'm fine," she says. "Looks like you are, too. So you can leave now."

He looks stricken, and she ignores the way the guilt pulls at her, deep in her belly. "Princess, just let me––"

"No!" she says, and punches him in the arm. "I don't have to let you do anything. I don't even know you!"

He catches her fist in his when she tries to hit him again, and his hands are gentle as he pries her fingers apart and slips his own between them.

"You do," he says. "You do know me, princess. But if you don't believe me, you should at least give me a chance to prove it."

Clarke draws in a shuddering breath, and doesn't speak.

"My real name's Bellamy Blake," he tells her. "I have a little sister named Octavia, a one-eyed dog named Cyclops, I'm roommates with another cop in a shitty apartment across town, and I want to take you on a date."

Clarke can only stare at him, open-mouthed. "Wh-what?"

" _Clarke."_ He uses his grasp on her hand to tug her closer until she stumbles into him, and she realizes that's the first time he's ever let himself say her name. "I'll tell you everything about me, I  _swear_. Just––just give me a chance."

"You named your one-eyed dog Cyclops?" she asks, and he frowns.

"That's what you got from that?"

Classical mythology and calculus, she remembers, and a tiny bud of hope blossoms in her chest.

"So you really  _are_ a huge mythology nerd?" she says, and he lets out a surprised laugh.

"That's what my sister tells me," Bellamy replies. "But you should find out for yourself."

"Okay," she says.

"Okay?" he echoes, face hopeful.

Clarke smiles. "Pick me up at seven."

* * *

Bellamy Blake is, in fact, a huge nerd. Even better, she finds out, he's a huge nerd who can kiss her until all she knows is him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D Let me know your thoughts.


	9. Sunbathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From jasminenightshade on tumblr: "Raven and Clarke are sunbathing / tanning topless and Wick and Bellamy happen upon them. Now this can be an AU or canon verse. Either is fine!"

One of Clarke’s favorite things about her and Raven’s new apartment is the terrace. The fact that they’re on the top floor, and that the railing is a half-wall instead of fencing, means that no one can see when they’re stretched out on their lounge chairs, soaking in the early summer sun. 

Which, you know, is kind of a requirement when you soak in the sun while topless. 

“Hit me,” Raven mumbles, eyes blissfully closed and holding out a hand in Clarke’s direction. Clarke obliges and hands her a bottle of iced tea, then busies herself with adjusting her bikini bottoms. Bellamy does this  _thing_  with his mouth wherever she gets tan lines––he can’t seem to resist them––and she wants to make sure her bikini is perfectly placed for a crisp transition between the tanned skin of the rest of her body and, well, the only untanned part. 

Just then, the sliding door to the terrace opens, and Clarke squeaks and covers her breasts with an arm. Raven's lying belly-down on her lounge chair, everything important hidden, and she raises an eyebrow at the sight of her boyfriend. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Wick says, whirling around so his back is to Clarke. “I didn’t know!”

“What are you talking about?” Clarke can hear Bellamy say as he approaches the sliding door. They must have used the spare keys Raven and Clarke gave them to get into the apartment. 

“Wick––? Oh.” 

Clarke can feel her cheeks heat with more than just the sun when Bellamy stops abruptly in the doorway and stares at her, eyes traveling from her pink-painted toes to her eyes and then back again. 

“Is this what they do when we’re not around?” Wick hisses at Bellamy, back still turned. 

Raven snickers. “Don’t be such a twelve-year-old boy about it, Kyle.” She moves to sit up, and Bellamy clears his throat and whirls around too. Raven grabs her coverup and tosses Clarke’s to her. 

Once they’re both dressed, Clarke asks, “What are you guys doing here?” 

Bellamy peeks back over his shoulder, and upon seeing her clothed, he taps Wick on the arm and they face the girls. “We thought you might be hungry. Brought sandwiches from that deli you like so much.”

“Didn’t know you’d be naked,” Wick announces. “Didn’t realize this was that kind of place. No offense, but I didn’t really want to see Clarke like that.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow, but smiles. “None taken.” 

Raven punches Wick in the arm. “That’s what you get for not calling ahead,” she tells him, and then stands on her tiptoes to plant a smacking kiss on his mouth. 

Bellamy steps over to Clarke and winds his arms around her waist. She loops her arms around his neck in return. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says, a smile curving his lips. “Do this often?”

She gives him a wicked grin. “Often enough to maintain those tan lines you like so––” Clarke can’t say anything else with his mouth covering hers, but she likes it too much to mind. 

(And later,  _he_  really,  _really_ likes her tan lines.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts! ;D


	10. Murder Gorilla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke is being chased by the murder gorilla and Bellamy tries to rescue her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "MURDER GORILLA" (This one's another shorty!)

When Bellamy hears Clarke’s scream, he takes off running. It doesn’t matter that he’s in the middle of giving orders for the repairs of the camp wall, or that he only has a handgun tucked into the waistband of his pants, or that it’s a really fucking stupid idea to run off alone into the woods, and if anyone else did it he would kick their ass.

But it’s Clarke’s voice, and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her scream like that. And he doesn’t ever want to hear her scream like that again. 

So he runs. 

She wasn’t supposed to go far; she had taken a gun of her own and wandered off into the trees to look for a mushroom or something that was supposed to be good for treating rashes. 

As he gets closer to where the scream originated, he notices signs of wildlife–– _big_ wildlife––all throughout the area. His heart stutters in his chest as he remembers what Clarke told him during one of their ritual nightly talks, about the mutant, murderous gorilla that attacked her and the commander. Her voice had been steady as she told him about the creature, but her hand had trembled in his as they lay tangled in their blankets.

“Clarke?” he calls, searching for a glimpse of her golden hair. His gun is pointed at the ground, but every muscle in his body is tensed, prepared to aim and fire if he sees the gorilla. Even as he feels sick when Clarke doesn’t call back to him, and though his head pounds and his lungs seem to be sluggish, he’s ready to kill the fucking thing on sight.

“ _Clarke_.” 

He doesn’t care that it’s a plea more than anything this time. 

“Clarke!”

A furious, inhuman scream rips through the air, followed by a rapid burst of gunshots.

Bellamy bursts through the trees and finally,  _finally_ sees Clarke, and she’s standing and not dead and unhurt and not dead and pale and she’s  _not dead not dead not dead._  

He glances at the twitching body of the gorilla on the ground in front of her. It’s clear that Clarke’s mortally wounded it, and it’s not about to go anywhere, but he fires his gun until the clip is empty. 

“I think it was dead after your first shot,” Clarke says tightly as he shoves the gun back in his waistband. 

“I don’t care,” he says, and pulls her into his arms. 

He buries his face in her hair, and some part of him thinks it might be uncomfortable for Clarke, how tightly he’s holding her, but her own arms are like metal bands around his body, and she doesn’t make any move to pull away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm loving all of your comments; thank you all so much for letting me know your thoughts on these installments! <3
> 
> If anyone wants to join me ~~on tumblr~~ [in my trash can](http://www.enoughtotemptme.tumblr.com)


	11. Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke and Bellamy trapped in a cave"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got smutty. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

They’re still not used to life on the ground. Their first winter was mild, a few gentle snowstorms and a lot of rain, but nothing they couldn’t handle with the aid of the  _Trigedakru._

This winter, their second, is a different story. It’s only early November, but the winter’s first major storm is well underway, and of course it begins only when Bellamy and Clarke are already kilometers out from camp on a search for the hardy but elusive plant Nyko told them was good for winter flus. 

And now it's started to hail. 

“We’re stuck here until the hail stops coming down,” Clarke announces, staring out the entrance of the cave where they’ve taken shelter. The wind was nearly enough to knock her over when they were out among the trees, but at least in here most of the wind is blocked. But the hail is coming down in ever-larger clumps, and even as she watches she sees one twice the size of her fist shatter on a tree limb. 

She hears a snort. 

“No shit, princess.”

She turns and frowns at Bellamy, who’s busily unloading things from his pack. 

“You don’t have to be an ass about it,” she says. “It’s a valid observation.”

He finishes laying out his bedroll with a flourish, then toes off his shoes before flopping down onto it and raising an eyebrow at her. 

“Clarke, anyone with eyes can tell we’re not going anywhere any time soon. And it’s getting late. Shut up and get over here.”

She huffs, but stalks over to him anyway. 

“The longer this takes, the worse Harper and Miller are going to feel,” she grumbles, plopping down on his bedroll.

“They’ll feel shitty, yeah, but you said yourself that flu isn’t deadly,” he replies. “And, hey, you know the rules!” Bellamy lightly shoves her until she rolls her eyes and pulls off her boots.

“Happy?” she asks, tossing the shoes away from her.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m happy your dirty-ass boots are off of my bedroll.”

Clarke sighs. “You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?”

Bellamy’s arm snakes around her middle and Clarke can’t help the yelp that slips out of her mouth when he yanks her down on top of him. He rolls them until he’s pressed up against her back, hot breath tickling her neck. 

“Hey, I don’t hear you complaining about my no-boots-in-bed rule when we’re at home,” he says, his hand slipping under her shirt to trace circles around her navel. His touch is just firm enough to not tickle, but soft enough to make her muscles tremble. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you pick my nice, clean bed over yours nine times out of ten.”

“I––That’s not why––” she tries, but can’t quite get the words out when his fingers are skirting the waist of her pants, dipping under the fabric every few seconds.

Clarke groans, partly in response to his touch and partly in response to his snicker at her incoherence.

“Oh, so you have a different reason you like my bed more than yours?” Bellamy taunts. His fingers pause to unfasten her pants, and Clarke bites her lip.

“Maybe,” she says, tripping over the word when he stops teasing and slips his hand straight into her underwear. 

His teeth graze her ear and she shivers as his fingers trace up and down her slit. 

“Why else do you like my bed?” he asks.

“You’re in it,” she says, then whimpers when he curls one finger, then two into her.

He dips his head and places an open-mouthed kiss on her neck, humming in reply even as his fingers stay buried in her. “Nice try, princess,” Bellamy murmurs into her skin. “But you and I both know I’m in whatever bed you choose that night.” 

“Smells like you,” Clarke admits. He thumbs at her clit, drags his fingers in and out as she pants.

“Huh,” Bellamy says. “Really?” He twists his fingers in her when she doesn’t respond immediately and Clarke moans long and loud. 

“Y-yes,” she stutters out as he starts massaging the spot deep in her cunt in the way that always makes her hips rock, trying to get his fingers to hit it harder, longer,  _better_. 

“I thought you said I smell like swamp by the end of the day,” he says. 

She shakes her head frantically as her thighs start to tremble, one hand fisting the fabric of the bedroll while the other reaches back to grip Bellamy’s thigh. 

“Smells like––like home,” she gasps, and his fingers still just long enough to have Clarke let out a near-sob and a “ _Please, Bellamy.”_

That spurs him into moving again: his mouth goes back to her neck, sucks hard at her skin while he speeds his fingers and rubs his thumb in hard circles around her clit. 

The muscles in her thighs spasm uncontrollably as she arches her back, pressing herself harder against his hand while her orgasm flows over her in heady waves. “Shit,” she chokes out, “ _shit shit shit.”_

Bellamy keeps working her flesh until she shudders hard, releases her hold on his thigh to grasp his forearm where it’s draped over her body. 

“Stop,” she breathes, but he already has, used to her cues. She shivers as he carefully slides his fingers out of her body and out of her clothes.

They’re silent for a moment; the only sounds are Clarke’s slowly evening breaths and Bellamy’s rustling as he cleans off his hand. Then he wraps his arm around her waist again, pulls her snugly against him. 

Clarke waits in dread for him to break their silence.

“I smell like home?” he says in a funny-sounding voice.

Clarke flushes. There it is. “Shut up,” she mutters. 

She can feel the laugh rumble out of him. 

“It’s alright, princess,” he says. “You smell like home to me, too.”

“I said shut  _up_ ,” she says, closing her eyes and listening to the steady fall of hail outside of the cave. Bellamy buries his face in her hair, and Clarke smiles when he breathes her in with a contented hum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What weirdos. ;) Let me know your thoughts!


	12. First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellarke + first kiss"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU because I can!! This was WAY TOO MUCH FUN.
> 
> Edit: This won Third Place for Best Friend's Brother Fiction in the 2015 Bellarke Fanfiction Awards! Thanks so much!

Clarke Griffin is twenty-three years old and has never been kissed.

It’s like that stupid, awesome Drew Barrymore movie, except Clarke’s extremely self-educated about human sexuality and it’s not for a lack of wanting that she hasn’t been kissed.

In fact, she’s pretty sure it’s an  _excess_ of wanting that’s gotten her to twenty-three unkissed.

Specifically, wanting Bellamy Blake.

Sure, she’s had other options. If she had  _really_ wanted to just get kissed and get it over with, she could have kissed Finn (though thank god she didn’t, because after a month of Finn sniffing around Clarke, Raven turned up, and if Clarke  _had_ given in and kissed him, that could have turned out to be a major shitstorm). 

Or Wells, because even though Clarke hadn’t felt the same, she knows he would have forgiven her if she had taken advantage of his feelings for her to try out the kissing thing. 

She’d come closest to getting her first kiss with Lexa, but though the other woman was beautiful, strong, and very attractive, Clarke couldn’t get stupid Bellamy Blake out of her mind long enough to lock lips.

While Clarke has known Bellamy for the better part of a decade, Bellamy’s spent that time patching up her scraped knees, scaring off potential prom dates with terrifying scowls, and in general completely failing to see how head-over-heels stupid in love with him Clarke is. 

Her best friend’s older brother is still oblivious to her feelings as well as her gaze as he putters around the kitchen she and Octavia share. He’s staying with them while he’s in town for Lincoln and Octavia’s engagement party, and his proximity frustrates Clarke as much as ever. Octavia’s out to brunch with Lincoln’s family, trying to win over his scary-stoic mother and sister, and Bellamy and Clarke are alone.

“Do you want anything in your pancakes?” he asks, stirring a bowl of batter. “Blueberries, chocolate chips?”

Before Clarke can reply, he cuts her off. “No, you hate pancakes. Waffles are okay, though, right?”

Clarke blinks. “Yeah, waffles are fine.” 

“Then get out the waffle iron, princess,” he says, a smirk on his lips. She rolls her eyes and slides off her stool. But the low cupboard where they store the waffle iron is directly across the kitchen from Bellamy, and Clarke pauses before she does as he asks. 

“You alright there, Clarke?” he asks when she doesn’t move. 

Clarke considers him, then smiles slowly. “I’m fine.” 

She saunters across the linoleum floor, takes her time bending over at the waist as she pulls open the cabinet door and starts digging around for the waffle iron. 

Hearing a clang, Clarke pictures Bellamy dropping the whisk into the metal mixing bowl. She might have picked these pajamas on purpose, maybe because the shorts are a size too small and tend to reveal the edges of her panties, and the camisole likes to ride up and bare her midriff. 

Clarke knows it’s not altogether sporting to appeal to a man’s sexual urges, but she’s been left without very many options after so many years of trying to get it through his stupid head that she’s a _woman,_ not a little girl running around with his baby sister. 

Sure, she could  _tell him,_ like Raven said when Clarke had partaken in a few too many margaritas and spilled her guts about her massive and varied collection of feelings for Bellamy Blake. But that also sounds like a recipe for fucking disaster, and Clarke’s not too proud to admit she’s chickenshit when it comes to her heart and Bellamy’s monopoly on it. 

“Got it,” Clarke says, setting the iron on the counter and plugging it in. 

“Great,” Bellamy replies distractedly; when she turns around, Clarke is delighted to see that he actually  _is_  fishing his whisk out of the gooey batter.

“Something startle you?” she asks, leaning against the counter. Her top’s still bunched up, revealing her navel as the little shorts sit low on her hips and high on her thighs, and Clarke makes absolutely no move to change any of those things. 

Bellamy glances up at her, his hands still in the bowl, and freezes for a moment. Then he snaps.

“Fucking hell, Clarke, put on some damn clothes!” His body looks tense, as if every part of him is coiled and prepared to strike. 

Clarke’s lips part a little in shock at the sudden change from the playful tone she’s used to, to this––this––ferocity.

Then she narrows her eyes. She may be stupid in love with Bellamy Blake, but that doesn’t mean he gets to tell her what the fuck to do. 

“Fuck off,” she says. “This is my apartment, and I’ll wear whatever the hell I want.” 

A muscle in his jaw jumps.

“It’s considered a courtesy to dress  _decently_ when you have guests,” he says stiffly. 

“Excuse me, Miss Manners, but I’ll walk around naked before I’ll let you tell me what to do,” Clarke snaps. 

“Put. On. Some. Clothes,” he grits out. 

Clarke glares at him, and deliberately grasps the drawstring of her shorts. 

She’s bluffing, of course; even if she undoes the string, the shorts are so snug they’re not going anywhere.

“Clarke!”

She pulls sharply, and the little bow undoes itself.

Bellamy tosses the mixing bowl onto the counter, crosses the kitchen in a single stride, and pulls her into him with one batter-sticky hand on her back, the other on her face. 

Holy  _shit_ , is this really how––

Yes, Clarke thinks, eyes fluttering closed as she registers the pressure of Bellamy’s lips on hers. Yes, this is how Clarke Griffin gets kissed for the first time. 

After the fierce way that he crossed the room and seized her, his lips are surprisingly gentle. It’s not a soft kiss, not really, but it’s not all clashing teeth and biting lips either. 

Instead, it’s a determined kind of kiss, and Clarke can’t help the little noise she lets out when his tongue strokes firmly over her lips until she parts them. 

He tastes like black tea and sugar, and somehow he already knows what Clarke likes best before she’s even had time to form an opinion. 

She is just starting to wonder if it’s obvious that she’s never done this before, and also how to breathe when her mouth is otherwise occupied, when Bellamy pulls away. His hair is even more rumpled than his usual bedhead makes it––oops, Clarke thinks, pulling her hands out of his hair and wondering when they got there.

She rests her hands instead on his chest, and feels the rapid breathing that matches her own. 

“I...” Bellamy trails off. He shrugs helplessly, letting his hand fall from her face, though the other stays warm and steady against the small of her back. 

“That was really good,” Clarke blurts out.

“Uh, thanks?” Bellamy replies uncertainly. 

She can’t stop babbling. “No, I mean, that was great; I just didn’t know what to expect, but you––” 

“‘Didn’t know what to expect?’” Bellamy echoes, his face puzzled. 

“Oh god,” Clarke says very quietly, but he still hasn’t let her go so he’s close enough to hear everything.

“Clarke?”

She ducks her head to stare at his chest instead of his face when she replies. “That might have been my first kiss,” she mumbles. 

A moment of silence.

“You’ve  _never_  been kissed?” His voice is incredulous, and Clarke wrinkles her nose before looking back at him.

“Ah, nope,” she replies. “No kissing, no sexing, none of that.” 

“No sex––wait, have you ever––?” His eyes flicker between her face and lower _._

Clarke snorts and looks up at the ceiling. “ _Yes,_ I’ve gotten myself off, Bellamy. Jesus. It’s the twenty-first century.”

He tilts her chin until she’s looking back at him; instead of looking sheepish or embarrassed, his pupils are so wide and night-sky dark that Clarke half-expects to see stars in them.

“Can I help next time?”

She stares at him as his words sink in. Then, slowly, she starts to giggle, the sound growing louder at the way his brow furrows in response. 

“Smooth, Bellamy,  _really smooth––”_

Her laughter is cut off when he cups her between her legs and she lets out a little surprised gasp instead. His skin is still separated from hers by her shorts and panties, but the fabric is thin enough to feel the warmth of his palm in a place only she’s touched before.

“Fuck,” she whispers, feeling the heat creep up her neck to her cheeks as she stares at him with wide eyes. Her fingers slowly curl into fists, holding the fabric of his t-shirt tightly to anchor herself. 

“ _Please_?” he says. That little muscle in his jaw jumps again as he waits for her reply.

“Really?” she squeaks; in response he leans forward and kisses her again, this time until she can barely think. 

“Okay,” she breathes when he pulls back, “Yes, please, please,  _please do_.”

(He does.)

(It’s an even better first than her first kiss.)

(But the best first is four months later, when Bellamy is the first one to say  _I love you._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I! Am! Fluff! Trash!!!! (Let me know your thoughts!!)


	13. Another First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy Blake, are you staring at my breasts?"
> 
> A sequel fic to "First Kiss," the previous chapter in this collection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got realllly long and really smutty.

When Bellamy found out that he had been twenty-three-year-old Clarke Griffin’s first kiss, and his first reaction was to ask if he could also be the first person to get her off, Clarke couldn’t help but laugh. Because,  _jesus, Bellamy, what a Dude thing to say._

She’s not laughing now. Now that he’s said  _please,_ and she’s said  _yes_  because she loves him and is helpless against that look in his eyes.

The waffle batter is congealing in the mixing bowl, the waffle iron is overheating where it’s plugged in on the counter, and Bellamy’s hand is still held firmly between her legs as he kisses her deeply, methodically. 

Clarke hopes she gets better at the breathing-while-kissing thing with practice, because after just a moment she has to pull away to gulp in air. Bellamy doesn’t give her much of a chance to do so, his fingers suddenly pressing hard through the fabric of her pajama shorts to graze her clit. The shock of the touch has Clarke gasping and rising on her tiptoes.

“I don’t know when Octavia’s getting back from brunch,” she manages to say, trying to keep herself from grinding against his hand while they’re in the middle of kitchen she shares with his little sister. 

Bellamy raises an eyebrow. “Is that your way of saying we should take this to the bedroom?” 

Clarke doesn’t think it’s possible to flush any deeper than she already has, but she feels the new rush of heat in her cheeks nonetheless.

“I don’t––I mean, I––” she stutters, and when his lips quirk up in a grin she scowls and punches him in the arm. “Don’t be a jerk!”

His fingers flex again, and Clarke drops her head to his chest as a whimper slips out. 

“Sorry,” Bellamy says, and she can hear the smile in his voice and feel the words vibrate through his chest. He takes his hand away from her and Clarke barely manages to prevent another whimper at the loss of contact. 

Then both of his hands slide down to her thighs, and Clarke yelps and clutches at his shoulders as he picks her up. Her legs wrap around him automatically and she’s delighted when he lets out a groan as she settles against him.

“ _Fuck_ , princess,” he mutters and nips her lip when she giggles at him, then starts to head out of the kitchen.

“Wait!” she says, and he stops abruptly.

“What?” he asks. 

She reaches out with one hand and yanks the waffle iron plug from the socket. 

“I don’t want to get in trouble with your sister for setting our kitchen on fire,” Clarke says, locking her arms around him again. 

Bellamy stares at her for a minute, and then when he kisses her again he’s laughing. She doesn’t mind, because he tastes like joy. She wonders if she tastes the same to him––she should, because she doesn’t know the last time she was so incandescently happy.

In between messy kisses, he stumbles his way to her room as Clarke clings to him. Once there, he lets her slide down until her feet are on the floor, and he locks the door behind them. 

She’s a messy person, and her room shows it. There are blank and painted canvases stacked against the far wall and one still on the easel wedged in the corner, a half-done project for her MFA. Her closet doors are hanging open, clothes are spilling over the edge of her hamper, and her blankets are shoved to the foot of her bed.

Though it could be worse, there’s no denying her room could use some tidying up. But Clarke can’t bring herself to be embarrassed about something that Bellamy’s known about her since she was barely a teenager. 

At least her taste in decor is a little more refined, Clarke thinks as Bellamy takes in the room. The last time he’d been in Clarke’s bedroom, it was a dorm room she shared with Octavia and there were posters of Adam Levine and  _Harry Potter_  all over the place. She still loves  _Harry Potter_ , but now the wall behind her bed is hung with a couple Alphonse Mucha prints she brought back from Paris a year ago. 

“ _Repos de la nuit_ ,” Bellamy reads the titles of the pieces from the bottom of the prints. “ _Rêverie du soir_.” 

His voice is interested, his words crisp, his accent flawless, and Clarke has to lock her knees when they tremble in response to the foreign words rolling off of his tongue.

She hasn’t had to deal with him speaking in French since he helped her study for her last French final in high school. There’s never been much reason for Bellamy to slip into one of the languages he teaches at the university two hours away, not in her presence at least.

Clarke’s always been grateful for that, because it meant that he never witnessed her flustered response to him speaking in Spanish, or French, or Italian, but  _goddamn_  is she regretting it now. Maybe if he  _had_ spoken them more often, she could have built up an immunity to the wicked sounds coming out of his mouth. 

He says something in French to her then, and though she passed that high school French final with flying colors, she can only stare at him.

“I––” Clarke shrugs helplessly. “I didn’t quite get that.”

Bellamy frowns, looks at her in a considering manner. Clarke shifts uncomfortably while he scrutinizes her, and when he repeats the sentence––nope, she still can’t focus on translating––her thighs clench together in what she hopes is a subtle movement. 

Not subtle enough, apparently, because his face lights up even as his eyes grow dark. 

“Clarke,” he begins, stepping closer to her, but she groans. 

“Just––please, stop,” Clarke begs, burying her face in her hands. “I can only handle you discovering so many embarrassing things about me.”

A moment of silence, then a hand ghosts over her arm in a soft caress. 

“I don’t mean to embarrass you, Clarke,” he says quietly, tugging her hands away until she looks at him. “I just––it’s just kind of incredible, you know?”

“Uh,” Clarke says. “Not really?”

He lets out a frustrated sound. “I’ve known you forever, right? But you still––you still manage to surprise me, and it’s kind of crazy how much I really,  _really_ like finding out new things about you.”

“Like the fact that you speaking other languages turns me on?” she replies bluntly.

She sees the movement of his throat as he swallows hard, reaches out and pulls her until her body is flush against his. 

“It’s just when  _I_ speak other languages?” he asks. 

Her camisole is still bunched up beneath her breasts, and the soft scratch of his t-shirt against the skin of her belly makes her shiver.

Clarke sighs. “Yeah.”

“Then yes,” he replies, ducking his head to whisper the words against her ear. “That’s something I’m embarrassingly grateful to know about you, Clarke Griffin.”

The hot brush of his breath and lips against her ear has the nerves all over her body prickling to life.

“Fuck,” she whispers, then her whole body jolts as he nips her earlobe. “ _Fuck, Bellamy._ ”

“You want me to tell you something about me, princess?” he says, trailing his mouth down her neck. “Even the playing field?” 

His hands slide down her back to cup the swell of her ass. Clarke’s not doing so well at the whole making-sentences thing, but Bellamy accepts her nod as a response.

“Okay,” he says, and his teeth catch on her collarbone with the words. 

Clarke bites her lips so she doesn’t let out the embarrassingly loud sound she knows is just  _waiting_ to escape.

“You remember that time I got mad at you and Octavia for going to that frat party?”

They’d called him for a ride back to their sophomore-year apartment, too drunk and too cold to handle the idea of the trek home. He’d driven across town from where he’d lived in grad student housing to pick them up. When they got home, he had put them to bed with a glass of water and aspirin on their nightstands, but not before he railed at them about how stupid it was of them to get drunk at a frat house. 

“Mm hmm,” Clarke manages. 

“I wasn’t really mad at you two,” Bellamy says. “But you were wearing that dress, the black one with the funny back?”

It takes her a second to figure out the one he meant, her dress with thin lines criss-crossing over her back but leaving it mostly bare. 

“I yelled because I couldn’t stop thinking about how you were obviously not wearing a bra,” he mutters into her skin. “And I couldn’t keep myself from picturing, uh, that.” 

“That––you––three years ago?” His mouth on her body feels way too good, but she manages to gather the determination to push him away. 

He looks at her, a sheepish smile on his face. “If you’re counting.”

“Oh my god. You’re an idiot,” Clarke says. “ _I’m_ an idiot. Why didn’t––?” She cuts herself off. It’s not fair of her to question him about why he never did anything about his apparent lust for her over the past three years. She’s been in love with him for much longer than that, and she never breathed a word. Still hasn’t.

“No bra, huh?” she says instead, eyeing him thoughtfully. Then before she can lose her nerve, she grasps the hem of her camisole and pulls it off.  

She’s nervous, standing naked from the waist up in front of him, but only for about four seconds. That’s when the awed and slightly stupid expression on his face registers with her. 

Clarke waits a couple more seconds, then laughs when his gaze stays trained well below her face. “Bellamy Blake, are you staring at my breasts?”

“Absolutely,” he replies. 

“You do realize you could be doing more than staring at them?” she prompts after yet another moment. 

His eyes snap to hers. “I––” 

Clarke rolls her eyes and skirts around him to crawl onto her bed. His body covers hers the second she rolls onto her back, and somehow he’s already stripped off his shirt. His mouth catches hers in a kiss, his tongue immediately licking into her, devouring her as if she’s ambrosia and he’s desperate for immortality. 

She’s never had this much skin-to-skin contact with anybody, ever, and the fact that it’s Bellamy’s chest against her breasts, that it’s his heat combined with hers that’s making their skin slick with sweat so that her peaked nipples slide against his body with every heaving breath, that he’s her first love and the first to kiss her and the first to touch her like this––all of these things mean that Clarke is going to lose her  _mind._

Before she even realizes what’s happening, Bellamy’s shifting lower, his mouth feeling hotter than she ever imagined it could as he sucks a nipple into his mouth. Clarke threads her hands through his hair, and barely recognizes the sounds tumbling out of her mouth as his mouth and hands sear her skin, leaving invisible brands that prove Clarke has only ever been his. 

His hands drift to grasp her shorts, and he waits for her to respond to his questioning tug. Clarke raises her hips, lets him shimmy the snug pajama shorts along with her damp panties down her legs. 

But when he tosses them away, returns to press a kiss between her breasts, and then starts to move down her body, Clarke tenses and grabs his shoulders. 

“Wait!” she blurts out. He stops immediately. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, grabbing a hand from his shoulder and threading his fingers through hers. 

“I don’t––” Clarke pauses, gnaws on her lip. 

Bellamy waits patiently, not moving from where he was when she spoke, and squeezes her hand.

“It’s just––It’s just, this is the first time anyone’s ever done this. To me,” Clarke says. “Maybe––could you maybe not, um, go down on me for the first time?”

In theory, it sounds fucking amazing. (Hey, Clarke’s educated, alright? She reads sexy shit. A  _lot_ of sexy shit.) But in practice? It sounds a little embarrassing and a little strange and a little scary, at least to start with, because even though it’s Bellamy and she’s been in love with him for _ever––_ well, it’s  _Bellamy_ , and her first time having anyone other than herself and her doctor get all up in her lady business. 

So excuse her if she’s a little nervous about it.  

But Bellamy just smiles and presses a kiss to the quivery skin just below her navel.

“Whatever you want, princess,” he says, crawling back up her body. “There’s always next time.”

“Next time?” Clarke echoes, and then he kisses her.

“Or the next,” he breathes between the gentlest kisses she’s ever felt. Well, not that Clarke’s felt a lot of kisses. But for only having one set of lips, Bellamy sure has a hell of a lot of kisses, and Clarke’s already gotten to experience a lot of them. 

He positions himself on his side next to her, head propped up on one hand so he can watch her. 

“You’re––” Bellamy pauses, and she can hear him swallow hard as he looks down her body. Clarke's thighs are clenched together, but she’s all-too-aware of the fact that he can still see the dark gold hair between her legs. He can see all of her.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and if Clarke had any doubts about this, they all would have disappeared at the badly-hidden wobble in his reverent words.

Clarke turns her head to watch his face as she parts her legs a little in invitation. His lips are swollen and pink, and she imagines hers look the same. 

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, “ _please._ ” He just nods, leans over to press a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth as his other hand slips out of hers and traces its way down her body.

The moment his fingers slip through her curls to caress her, they both curse. Clarke, from the sensation of fingers so much larger and  _different_ than her own, and Bellamy about how fucking wet she is. His fingers slip right through her slick folds to bump against her clit, and her hips jerk. 

“ _Shit.”_ Clarke spreads her legs wider, no longer caring what she looks like or what he sees as long as he touches her, but Bellamy doesn’t look away from her face. 

His fingers slide down her slit, tracing her labia and avoiding touching her clit a second time. 

Clarke can feel wisps of hair start to stick to her brow as she pants from the effort of keeping herself still while he touches her, and she twists her hands into the bedsheets.

“Please,” she gets out.

“Tell me what you want,” he urges, and when her eyelids flutter closed he rubs her clit lightning fast. 

“ _Clarke_ ,” he says again when her eyes fly open, his voice sounding as desperate as she feels. “ _Tell_ mewhat you  _want._ ”

“Your fingers––in me,” she stammers, “Put your fingers in me,  _please_ ,  _please, Bellamy_ ––”

He shifts a little lower, crooks his hand a little differently to slide two fingers into her, and Clarke’s body is bowing off the bed as unintelligible sounds drop from her lips. 

The problem with always getting herself off was that her fingers could only reach so far, her wrists could only twist so much. But Bellamy doesn’t have that problem, and the way he’s moved down allows him to touch her deeper than she’s ever touched herself. 

Her legs are clamping around his hand and at some point she’s let go of her sheets to palm her own breasts, thumbs catching on her nipples as Bellamy’s foreign touch drives her up faster than she’s ever gone. 

“ _Fuck_ , Clarke,” Bellamy growls, and his own thumb  _finally_  moves to circle her clit mercilessly as his fingers keep stroking in and out. 

Together, it’s too much much and just enough and as she falls apart, she swears she sees stars, but only in his eyes as he watches her.

When the feeling of floating in space returns to the feeling of the bed underneath her body, and the only constellations she sees are the ones she can trace on Bellamy’s skin, Clarke exhales deeply, lets her eyes rest a minute. 

Then she opens them and catches Bellamy with his fingers in his mouth. He sees her looking, licks one last time before pulling them out. 

“There was still waffle batter on my hand?” he tries, and Clarke snorts.

“Nice try,” she says, and tries to ignore the warm fizzy feeling like bubbles in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Bellamy not being able to resist tasting her, even if she wouldn’t let him taste straight from the source. This time, at least. The idea of it still makes Clarke more than a little nervous, but never once did Bellamy make her feel less than desirable or beautiful, so... “Next time, maybe?”

“Really?” He sounds so eager, Clarke can’t help but laugh. Then she registers his body pressed up against the side of hers, and the way he’s obviously not unaffected by making her come.

“Only if you let me touch you first,” she bargains. 

“Will it be the first time you touch someone else?” he asks, his voice rougher than before. 

Clarke huffs. “Yes, you idiot.”

“Good,” he replies. “It’s a deal, then.”

“What, do you plan on being my first everything?” Clarke jokes with a smile.

“Yes,” Bellamy says immediately. 

Clarke waits for him to crack a grin or snicker or something, to tell her he didn’t really mean it. But he doesn’t. He just looks her in the eye, as serious as she’s ever seen him even as she still feels the length of him pressing through his pajama pants against her bare thigh.

“Oh,” she says eventually. 

“Is that a problem?” he asks, and now is the time the smallest bit of uncertainty creeps into his voice. 

Her eyes feel hot, but she ignores the burn in favor of reaching up to grasp his face in her hands and draw it to hers for a long, slow kiss. When they finally part, he rests his forehead against hers, and his breath warms her lips. 

“Not a problem,” Clarke says softly, beaming. “Not a problem at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I am smut trash this time. Let me know your thoughts? :)


	14. Lasts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From smallerontheoutside on tumblr: "Bellamy 'i want to be all your lasts, too, because I'm a huge dork loser who is stupid in love with you' Blake"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third and final installment in this world: First Kiss (chapter 12), Another First (chapter 13), and this fic.

Warm and content with good food and good wine, Clarke’s more than ready to go to bed when they finally get home. Bellamy seems to feel the same way, hand curled loosely around hers as he flips the deadbolt of their front door.

“ _Why_ is Lincoln such a good cook?” he complains as they make their way to their bedroom. “I had _thirds_ of everything. I couldn’t fucking stop myself.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “That’s because you’re weak, Blake,” she tells him, toeing off her heels and kicking them in the direction of the closet.

“He made alfredo sauce from _scratch_ , Clarke,” he replies indignantly. “From _scratch._ And don’t think I didn’t notice you singlehandedly eat half the loaf of bread.”

“It was freshly baked,” she protests weakly. He snorts. “Okay, okay, we’re both weak.”

As she takes off her jewelry, she notices him watching her, a funny little look on his face.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” he replies distractedly. “Oh, uh, no reason.”

“Okay…” Clarke says. “Weirdo.”

He makes a face at her and starts emptying his pockets on top of their dresser.

“Our first fancy dinner party at Octavia’s new house,” Clarke notes with a smile as she starts to pull out the billion pins keeping her hair in its updo.  How many firsts she and Bellamy can share—it’s been their running joke for well over the past year, ever since that fateful day in the kitchen of her old apartment.

“Yeah, I guess,” he replies.

Clarke frowns, tugs at a pin stuck in a tangle of hair. “What do you mean, you guess?”

“I don’t know, I’m getting a little tired of the whole ‘firsts’ thing,” he says, voice muffled as he tugs his sweater over his head, and Clarke stills.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Bellamy tosses his sweater in the hamper and shrugs. “It’s just that we’ve been stuck on firsts for years. Don’t you ever get a little sick of it?” he replies in an odd tone.

Her hands fall from her hair to hang limply at her sides.

He turns toward her, sees her expression and stops dead in his tracks. “Clarke?"

“What the fuck, Bellamy?” Clarke demands, trying not to let the sickening hurt she feels sitting leadenly in her gut show too much on her face. She’s pretty sure she fails miserably.

“Shit, wait, no—I didn’t mean—”

“What, now that you’ve been my first for everything you’re done?” she interrupts. “Fuck you.”

He lets out a frustrated sound. “That’s not what I’m saying, Clarke!”

“Then what are you trying to say?” she snaps. “Because it sure as hell sounds like it.”

“I’m trying to say I don’t just want to be your first,” he growls. “I want to be your fucking last, too.”

Clarke stares. “Excuse me?”

“I want to be the last thing you see at night,” he says. “I want to be the last one to take you on a date; I want to be the last one to take you home; I want to be the last and only man to ever make love to you. I want to be your last everything, Clarke.” At the end, his voice is desperate, and it shakes a little.

She swallows hard. “What are…what do you mean, Bellamy?”

“I want you to marry me.”

It feels like her heart is trying to jump right out of her chest.

“Are you sure?” she squeaks, feeling very small and fragile somehow.

His face transforms, his frown melting away as his mouth drops open.

“ _Am I_ —fuck, Clarke, of course I’m fucking sure!”  

“Well—good!” she replies, frowning. “Yes!”

His brow is furrowed and he opens his mouth as if to yell again when he pauses. “Wait. Yes?”

“Yes,” Clarke repeats, fighting to keep the smile off of her face as his expression slowly brightens.

“I—really?”

“Bellamy!” She loses the battle, and her laughter rings out. It’s quickly cut off, though; Bellamy closes the distance between them in a single stride, pulling her into his arms and slanting his mouth over hers.

His mouth is warm and sweet, and even though it’s been months and months since that first kiss, somehow he still tastes the same, all black tea and sugar and Bellamy.

His hand works its way into her hair, ruining what’s left of her chignon while the other sneaks its way up under her skirt until his thumb is stroking along the edge of her panties.

They’ve had their share of fast and dirty, rough and fun, but this isn’t one of those times. Instead they languidly pull apart, helping each other undress between kisses that manage to walk the line between unhurried and needy. Each caress is dreamy and soft, each graze of lips against skin deliberate, yet the slow determination of it all has the heat between them building shockingly fast.

The neatly-made blankets underneath Clarke’s back are Bellamy’s doing; the art hanging on the walls is hers, but all Clarke sees as Bellamy settles his shoulders between her legs is how all of it is so _them_.

He curls his hands around her thighs to hold her steady, licks hard from her entrance to her clit, laughing when her hips try to lift off the bed.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Clarke commands, but the effect is ruined by her breathless voice.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bellamy counters, and sets his mouth to work. He’s relentless, tongue and lips and teeth moving hungrily, but that’s how Clarke likes it best—messy and eager and almost a little obscene, with the sounds he makes when his tongue is buried in her and she lets out relentless strings of profanity in response.

Then he slows a little, and Clarke whimpers because she knows what’s coming.

He starts to whisper foreign words into her wet flesh; she can only hear snippets of them, can feel the flicker of his tongue as it curls around unfamiliar syllables, but that’s enough to have her clenching in want and using her fingers in his hair to pull his mouth closer, harder.  

Bellamy gets louder, and when she comes it’s to the sound of him repeating in three different languages that he loves her.

“It’s not fair when you use that against me,” she makes sure to complain as soon as she can speak again.

He laughs and places one more wet, noisy kiss on her clit, drawing a ragged sigh from her lips. “You love it,” he says.

“I love you,” she responds. A smile spreads across his mouth and he quickly climbs back up her body to kiss her, mouth and chin still damp. At the same time she tugs his lower lip carefully between her teeth, Clarke’s fingers trip lightly down his stomach to draw a featherlight touch along his cock; he hisses into her mouth and doesn’t resist when she urges him onto his back.

He’s left her so wet that she lowers herself onto him with ease, relishing Bellamy’s harsh groan as she lets out a quiet moan of her own.

She remembers the first time they tried it like this.

It was after a few months together, during spring break for both Clarke’s college and the university where Bellamy taught, and the second her final projects for the quarter were turned in, she got in her car and drove. Two hours later, she was in his arms; four hours later they were stumbling back from the pub down the street from his apartment, stomachs full and heads tipsy. The moment they made it into his bedroom clothes were shucked off, skin was kissed, bodies were pressed against one another on the bed.

“Wait,” she said when his arms tensed around her in the way that she knew meant he was about to roll them over.

He paused, waited for her to speak.

“I want to try it like this,” she said; when he registered what she meant, he just grinned and leaned back against his pillows.

“Whatever you want, princess.” His voice was low, his eyes like midnight.

The alcohol was still dizzying, but he didn’t laugh at her when she rose to her knees on the mattress and wobbled a little.  When she swung her leg over his hips so she straddled him, he cursed under his breath while putting steadying hands on her waist.

The first move hadn’t been perfect, nor the second or the third, but the fourth time sinking down onto him, her breath stuttered in her chest; her head tipped back as her eyes closed in bliss.

“ _Clarke_ ,” Bellamy breathed; when she opened her eyes, he was looking at her like she was the sun and the moon and the stars all at once.

It feels just as bright and new and perfect now as it did that first time. Hands braced low on his stomach, gaze locked on his, she rolls her hips slowly, biting her lip when the rhythm proves a little too perfect and delicious tremors race up and down her spine. His fingers create little divots in her skin, he’s squeezing her so tightly, but she doesn’t mind.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bellamy mutters when she changes to swiveling her hips experimentally. Her nails dig into the muscles of his abdomen when the movement puts insistent pressure on her clit.

“That’s it, princess,” he says, voice low and dark, and when she clenches around him with a gasp at the sound of the name, his smile is just as fierce.

Her rhythm starts to lose focus as the pleasure pools deep, and Bellamy uses his grip on her to pull her down on him _hard_ before flipping them over. One hand slides down to pull her thigh high around his waist while he uses the other to brace himself over her.

“I—oh _god,_ ” Clarke whimpers, her hands slipping over the slick skin of his back as he thrusts slow and deep, grinding against her each time. “ _Bellamy_.”

His lips catch hers in a kiss, making it even harder for her to breathe while the tension in her belly coils tighter and tighter—and when he has to pull away from her mouth to gasp her name, it breaks. Her hips cant against his, straining as the bliss takes over her body and she cries out when he breaks his pattern to stroke hard into her once, twice, three times and then follows her over the edge.

He presses her into the mattress as they catch their breath, and she delights in the heavy weight of him. After only a few moments, though, he rolls them over with a groan.

“Hey,” she gripes even as she burrows into his side and pillows her head on his chest. “I liked it there.”

He snorts. “Shut up, princess.”

She hums, rests her eyes for a minute while his fingers drift up and down her spine.

“Was it spontaneous?” she asks him, opening her eyes and tracing her name over his heart with her fingertips.

“Sex usually is,” he replies.

She pinches him and he badly stifles his yelp.

“Not the sex, you jerk,” Clarke says. “The whole…”

“The whole thing where I asked you to marry me?”

“Yeah,” Clarke replies. “Well, you more yelled it at me, but yeah.”

“Um,” he says. He's quiet, and for long enough that Clarke tips her head up to look at him. To her surprise, his freckled cheeks are flushed, and he makes a point to look at the ceiling instead of her.

“Bellamy?”

He heaves a sigh. “Well. The way I asked was spontaneous. I mean, I was just looking at you and you looked so beautiful and I love you so fucking much, and I knew I wanted to ask you before one more night went by. Though the way I led into it wasn't such a great choice,” he acknowledges ruefully.

“Okay,” Clarke says, her own cheeks pinking as the affection in his words warms her from head to toe. “Why didn't you want to just tell me that, though?”

He clears his throat, and even the tips of his ears grow red when he looks at her.

“Here, just—uh, hold on.” He shifts her off of him so he can roll over and dig in the nightstand on his side of the table. She watches in growing puzzlement as he piles the contents of his drawer on top of the nightstand, and then her jaw drops when he pulls out a thin wooden board.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Clarke says. “You did _not_ make a fake bottom for your drawer.”

“You’re nosy!” he says defensively, and when he rolls back over to her he’s holding a ring box, the velvet worn through to the smooth fabric underneath with age.

Clarke recognizes it instantly. It’s suddenly hard to breathe quite right, though she does her best to pull in a steadying breath as she sits up in bed and he mirrors her.

“That’s my grandmother’s,” she gets out. Her Nana Griffin passed away when she was just a baby, but her father always said Clarke looked just like her. Jake and Clarke would spend hours curled up on the couch in Jake’s study when Clarke was small, leafing through old photo albums and comparing Clarke to her grandmother. They even had the same beauty mark above their lips, though her grandmother’s was on the other side. Sometimes Jake would pull Nana Griffin’s things out of the safe—show little Clarke the small worn box with her grandmother’s old engagement ring, let her dress up in the less precious costume jewelry.

When her father died, her mother had the contents of the safe moved to a safety deposit box in the bank downtown, and Clarke hasn’t seen the ring since.

“I know,” he says. “You told me about it.”

“I did?” She can’t remember that at all. “When?”

“Uh,” he says sheepishly. “You were eighteen? You wanted to wear some of the other stuff for your prom, but then when your mom was supposed to go to the bank to get them for you, she had an emergency surgery.”

Her eyebrows skyrocket. “And you remembered?”

“I remember everything about you.”

“Oh,” Clarke says quietly. She can’t quite decide if that’s the sweetest thing she’s heard, or if it’s also the embarrassing. He’s known her since she was _thirteen_ , after all. “How long has that been in there?”

“The fake bottom, or the box?”

“Let’s start with the drawer,” she replies. 

His eyes shift away from hers to stare at the box. “Well. I wanted to be prepared for when I actually got the ring."

"Bellamy," she sings. "Tell me!"

He groans. "Since...we've lived here?”

Clarke’s eyes feel hot.

Bellamy asked her to move in with him when she finished with her MFA program—nearly a year ago. Clarke weighed the pros and cons, deliberated for a couple days. Eventually, she said yes—her and Octavia’s lease was up in June anyway, and Octavia’s wedding was set for the middle of summer, so she would be moving in with Lincoln. It just made sense for Clarke to move in with her boyfriend rather than look for her own place.

That, and she loved him to distraction, and she really, really wanted to live with him.

So she agreed with the provision they not live in his mediocre apartment, and instead rent a house with enough room for her to have a studio.

They were all moved into their little house by the fourth of July.

It’s April.

Sweet, she thinks as she rapidly blinks to clear the blur of tears from her eyes. It’s definitely sweet.

“And the ring?” she manages to get out.

“I asked your mom about it at O’s wedding, but she didn’t give it to me until we visited her at Christmas,” Bellamy says. “She told me off when I first asked, going on about how it hadn’t even been a year and that I was being too impulsive.”

Clarke frowns, remembering the strange tension around her mother at the reception. Her mother had brushed it off, claiming she was just getting emotional over the fact that her daughter’s childhood best friend was already getting married. “Really?”

He laughs a little. “Yeah. But I told her that I was entitled to it. I’ve wasted far too much time keeping myself from following my impulses when it comes to you,” he says.

“Yeah, you have,” she teases. After he kissed her that day, it slowly came out that Clarke hadn’t been the only one keeping more-than-friendly feelings hidden. “But she came around?”

Bellamy nods. “I think Marcus had a lot to do with it. But I like to think your mom realized I wasn’t going to change my mind. And that she saw we’re happy.”

Clarke makes a mental note to bring her stepfather a bottle of that whiskey he likes so much the next time they visit.

“You do realize it’s been four months since Christmas, though?” she points out, her lips turning up in a grin. “Not exactly following those impulses very quickly.”

“Hey, you can’t argue that our earlier conversation went like a carefully-planned proposal. Now do you want this thing or not?” he asks, popping open the box.

“I said yes, didn’t I?” Clarke holds out her hand expectantly, and Bellamy slides her grandmother’s ring onto her finger.

The stone is small, and the setting is old-fashioned, and it’s completely, utterly perfect.

“Goddamnit,” Clarke sighs, and takes his face in her hands, giddily noting the sparkle of the ring against his tan skin. “I love you.”

Bellamy barks out a surprised laugh as he pulls her into his lap. “A _goddamnit_ I love you? That’s a first for me.”

“Good,” she replies, and with that, she kisses him soundly.

Bellamy Blake is more than Clarke Griffin’s first love, or first kiss, or first time. He’s the first to slip a ring on her left hand, and the first she gives one to in return. He’s the first to hold her hair when she gets morning sickness, the first to hold her hand in the thirteen agonizing hours of childbirth, the first to hold their son as he wails his way through his first minutes on earth. The first man to look at her radiating absolute joy, and the first to tell her he’ll spend the rest of his life proving how much he loves her, and the first she believes instantly and completely.

He’s her first in every way that matters, and he’s her last in every way that matters more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahaha to no one's surprise I'm smut+fluff trash. Let me know your thoughts! ;)


	15. Cerberus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy and Clarke and Bellamy's new best friend a stray three-headed corgi named Cerberus"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went with a vague mutt over a corgi because of natural selection reasons.

“You’ve already  _named_ it?” Clarke says, staring at the mutant creature. 

“Cerberus,” Bellamy replies, scratching it behind the ears on the middle head. “It would probably have been a crime not to name him that, what with the three heads and all.” 

“Bellamy, I think that  _thing_ is the crime,” Clarke says skeptically. “Against nature.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Bellamy says to the dog, ruffling its mottled fur. “She’s just jealous I found the first dog and not her.”

The dog’s face–– _faces––_ are looking at her mournfully, and Clarke almost feels guilty about her comment. 

Almost.

“If you just found it out in the forest, it’s not likely to be tame,” she points out. “What if it devours us in our sleep? Or when we’re  _awake_?”

“Princess, loosen up,” Bellamy says, standing up. “He’s been nothing but gentle.” 

Clarke sighs. “Don’t come crying to me when it bites your hand off. I’m saving my medical supplies for people who  _aren’t_ morons.”

But when she tries to walk away, the dog slinks forward until it’s trotting along at her side. Clarke stops in her tracks and eyes the dog. It plops into a sitting position, looks back at her, then starts panting, tongues lolling cheerfully out of all three mouths.

“Bellamy,” she calls. “Come get your damn dog.”

“He likes you,” Bellamy replies. She turns and glares at him when she sees the grin on his face.

“I don’t like him,” she says through gritted teeth. “And I have work to do.”

It goes on like that for days. Even if Clarke manages to slip out of her and Bellamy’s cabin early in the morning before anyone else is up, the dog finds her within an hour. If she’s out looking for herbs in the forest, he’ll melt out of the trees and appear at her side with far too much stealth for such an unwieldy-looking animal. Even when she’s bathing in the river, the dog is never far away, though at those times it seems more like he’s guarding her from a polite distance.

“He’s your dog!” she explodes when Bellamy laughs one time too many upon the umpteenth time finding Cerberus curled up in the corner of the medbay, snoring. “Keep him with you, or I swear I’ll––”

“What?” Bellamy asks, leaning a hip against her worktable. “What’ll you do to him?”

Clarke narrows her eyes and stuffs some red seaweed into her mortar. “Oh, I won’t do anything to  _him_ ,” she says. “You, on the other hand, will be dead meat.”

Bellamy just smirks. “You can’t blame him for wanting to be by your side.”

“I can’t? Why not?” Clarke replies. 

“Lincoln says dogs learn from their masters,” he replies. “You can’t blame him for what he learns from me.” 

Clarke stops in the middle of grinding seaweed to blink at him. “What?”

He walks over to her, plucks the pestle out of her hand and lays it on the worktable. 

“We’re both want to protect what we care about,” Bellamy says. 

Clarke rolls her eyes. “That damn dog following me around is  _not_ doing it because he cares about me,” she says. 

“No, but that’s why I do it,” Bellamy replies. He manages to maintain his serious expression for about three seconds until Clarke scoffs and shoves at his chest. Then he’s laughing and catching her hands in his. 

“That was  _awful_ ,” Clarke says, her lips twitching as she tries to keep from smiling. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, and uses his grasp on her to pull her closer. “The basic idea is there, though.”

“Oh?” Clarke replies archly, looping her arms around his neck. “Do elaborate.”

“Shut up, princess,” he murmurs, and when she finally loses the battle against her laughter, he kisses her silent. Or at least until the lack of sound wakes Cerberus, who then growls at Bellamy until Clarke reaches down blindly and pats one of his heads, letting him know she’s alright––just a bit preoccupied.


	16. Sketches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy finds Clarke's sketches of him"

Almost four years ago, Bellamy was trying to make ends meet while putting his little sister through college and keeping up with the mortgage payment, and the third bedroom of their little house was sitting empty. A couple days on craigslist, a few interviews with frankly terrifying people wanting to rent the extra room, and then came Clarke. 

From the moment the Blakes met Clarke Griffin, it was clear that she was smart, responsible, and only a normal amount of crazy. She didn’t want the room because she’d been kicked out of her old place, or because she was on the run from the law, or anything like that––she was just tired of living in her parents’ home, and wanted to spend her college years in a new place.

They met her on a Tuesday. She was moved in by Friday. And that was that.

Since then, Bellamy’s occasionally regretted the quick decision he and Octavia made about letting Clarke move in. 

Usually this happens when Octavia and Clarke gang up on him about how much sleep he’s getting in between his job at the bar, his second job working security, and his online classes. 

Or he’ll regret it when Clarke goes through a health craze and the fridge is too full with kale and carrots and spinach to fit in a gallon of milk.

Often he regrets it on Thursdays, because when Clarke forgets to do laundry on the weekends, it’s always a Thursday when she resorts to wearing the smallest, oldest jean shorts known to man, and a tank top worn so thin he can make out the pattern of her bra while she scrambles to do her laundry before she runs out of underwear. (He regretted it when Clarke  _told_ him that, and since then he’s never been able to get the thought of Clarke Griffin without underwear out of his head.)

He regrets that he’s uncomfortably attracted to the bright, snarky blonde who pays him rent each month.

But regret doesn’t change how he feels.

Octavia’s on campus for her chemistry lab, but Clarke is home sick with a sinus infection. And though it’s Bellamy’s one day off this week, he can’t help but hover around her. 

She just looks so miserable, alright, and it’s not as if he’s got anything better to do. Jesus. 

Clarke’s curled up on the couch, and Bellamy’s on the opposite end by her feet while they watch the end of  _Beauty and the Beast,_ Clarke’s favorite. The credits begin to roll and Clarke groans, shifting on the couch.

Bellamy turns and sees her trying to push herself up.

“Hey!” he says. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Clarke opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted by a massive sneeze. 

“Ugh,” she says, her mouth turning down. 

Bellamy hands her a tissue. 

“Thanks,” she sniffs, and blows her nose obnoxiously loudly. Her hair is greasy from how much she’s been napping over the past couple of days, her eyes are watery and puffy, her nose is red and chapped. 

He tries to convince himself she’s not still beautiful to him.

(He fails.)

She wiggles again, trying to free herself from the blankets he’d tucked around her earlier when she was sleeping. 

“Clarke,” he says warningly. 

“Bellamy,” she snips back.

“You better need to pee,” he says. “That’s the only reason you should be getting up.”

She frowns at him––pouts, really, but the last time he pointed out her pout, she’d socked him in the arm and declared that  _Clarke Griffin does_ not  _pout._ “I’ve been on this couch for days. I need to work on my honors thesis at least a little.”

“Didn’t you hit the minimum requirement for your honors thesis, oh, a month ago?” he replies. 

“Just because there’s a minimum doesn’t mean I  _feel_ done,” Clarke replies. “I’ve got plans to add at least four more pieces.”

Bellamy sighs dramatically and pushes himself to his feet. “Fine. I’ll let you work on them  _if_ you stay on the couch and rest.”

“You’ll  _let me_?” Clarke echoes indignantly. He ignores her as he walks into the kitchen. Clarke has a bad habit of leaving her school stuff scattered across the dining table, and her messenger back is right there in the middle of it. 

He pulls open the flap, pulls out her sketchbook and her supply case. 

Returning to the living room, he holds them out to her. “Here.”

Clarke tries to grab them, but the heavy sketchbook falls out of her hands and to the floor, where the cover bounces open to reveal one of her sketches.

“Shit,” she says very quietly. Bellamy snorts and bends down to pick it up.

“No harm done, princess. It’s just a sketch...book...” he trails off when the subject of the drawing registers.

It’s him. More than that, it’s him, bare-chested, looking away from the viewer so the focus is on his jaw, throat, and shoulders rather than his face. Clarke had even sketched in all of his freckles in meticulous detail––there's the cluster of three on his right shoulder, the ones that look like Orion’s Belt. 

“Clarke?” he says. 

“Yes,” she replies eventually. 

“This is me.”

“Yes.”

Bellamy picks up the sketchbook, starts flipping through the pages as Clarke groans loudly. 

There are plenty of other subjects, Octavia and their friend Raven, some landscapes, a few still lifes. But a good third of the finished sketches are of him. 

“Why?” he asks, a funny feeling in this pit of his stomach as he reluctantly hands the sketchbook back to her. She sets it on her lap, fingers gripping the edges.

“I just really like you,” Clarke blurts out, and then her face reddens so much her poor nose doesn’t stand out anymore. “I mean, I really like your body–– _drawing_  your body––fuck––drawing you.”

Bellamy stares at her. “What?”

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut, and her nose wrinkles. “I really like drawing you,” she sighs. “I know it’s rude, especially without asking you. I can stop.”

Bellamy can’t help but smile at her face, all wrinkled nose and furrowed brow and bright cheeks. 

“I don’t mind,” he says honestly. She opens her eyes, peeks up at him.

“Really?” 

He shakes his head. “But how long, exactly, have you been drawing me?” he asks. 

“No comment,” Clarke replies crisply, and turns her sketchbook to a fresh page.

He watches her gaze determinedly at her blank page for a couple minutes as an idea formulates in his mind. Then Bellamy heads to the kitchen, pours Clarke a glass of juice and fixes her a plate of sliced fruit––she needs the vitamins, okay?––before grabbing a post-it and pencil. He delivers the snacks to Clarke, who thanks him absently, before returning to his spot on the end of the couch. 

They spend the following moments in silence broken only by the sounds of Clarke sipping and munching. Clarke’s pencil moves across her paper in light, quick scratches while Bellamy drags his in slow, deliberate moves over the bright yellow post-it as he concentrates.

“Here,” he says when it’s finished, reaching over and sticking it to the middle of her paper. She stops in the middle of a line, stares at the little post-it doodle. She pulls it gently from the paper and brandishes the note at him.

“What  _is_ this?” she asks. 

He hides his smile. “ _Clearly,_ it’s you. See the crown, princess?” He points to the series of spiky lines topping the horridly-executed stick figure.

“Okay...” she says slowly. “Thanks, I guess?”

“I just wanted to show you,” he says.

Clarke raises an eyebrow and waits.

“I like, uh,  _drawing_ you, too,” he says. 

Her eyes widen and dart between the doodle and his face. 

“Really?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” he replies. 

Clarke grins at the doodle, at him. “Well. Good,” she says, and they both settle back against the couch. Bellamy turns on  _Pacific Rim_ to keep himself entertained while Clarke works.

“Drawing is a metaphor,” he says suddenly, a few minutes later while kaijus are attacking. “In case you didn’t get that.”

Clarke laughs and smacks him in the shoulder. 

“I know, Bellamy. I know.”


	17. Girl Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke and Raven compare Finn and Bellamy in bed and Bellamy totally hears"

It’s like one of those nightmares, the one where you show up at work for an important presentation only to realize halfway through that you’re naked from the waist down. Eventually, you realize it’s probably a dream, but you can’t quite manage to wake yourself up from it. You’re just stuck.

That’s basically what happens to him. He lets himself into Clarke’s apartment with the spare key she’d given him to grab his bag where he’d forgotten it by the door earlier that morning. Just before he calls out a hello, he hears voices drifting from the terrace. Bellamy hadn’t realized Clarke was planning on having anyone over, and out of curiosity he rounds the corner enough to see Raven and Clarke stretched out in their bikinis on lounge chairs, massive tumblers of brightly-colored––likely alcoholic––drinks dangling from their hands. 

And then he hears them.

“Did he do that thing with his mouth?” Raven asks. Bellamy throws himself backward, smacking his body into the wall with a quiet thud as he quickly gets out of sight. 

“Finn didn’t do anything with his mouth,” Clarke replies skeptically.

 _Ugh_ , Bellamy thinks at the thought of Finn Collins’s mouth anywhere  _near_ Clarke. Or Raven, for that matter. He’s aware, unfortunately, of the women’s previous relationships with that asshole, but he doesn’t like to linger on the thought. 

“Ha! Trick question,” Raven crows. “You passed. I think he thinks his mouth’s only good for talking.”

“Did  _Bellamy_ do that thing with his mouth?” Clarke asks, and then he hears a big slurp. 

Bellamy swallows hard as heat builds in his cheeks. He should really––go. He should go right now. Really.

He can’t move.

Raven sighs. “Yeah. Lucky bitch, you get to have him do it more than the one time.” 

His face is probably all kinds of twisted up right now–– _oh god,_ he thinks.  _Please_ don’t tell him Raven wants a repeat of their drunken one-night-stand from three years ago. Sure, that time turned into a great friendship, but Bellamy doesn’t know how the hell he would deal with the knowledge that she wants to do it again. Probably with a lot of awkwardness and hiding behind Clarke. 

Clarke snorts. “I’d offer to let you try again, except, no, I don’t want to.” 

 _Good, Clarke, good_ , Bellamy thinks. 

“Sharing is caring!” Raven says.

“You’re not telling me Wick doesn’t know how to use his mouth,” Clarke retorts. 

There’s a pause, then a giggle. “Nope, you’re right. Nevermind, I’m good. I’m  _really_ good.”

 _Thank god_ , Bellamy thinks. Also  _ugh_ , because again, he’s not really into hearing about Wick’s abilities in the bedroom, but overall  _thank god_ Raven’s happy with Wick. 

“Okay, okay, okay,” Clarke says when the giggles die down. Bellamy raises an eyebrow at the excited repetition––usually Clarke only starts talking like that after more than a couple drinks, and he wonders how much of that tumbler she’s already sucked down. “On a scale of zero to ten, rate Finn and Bellamy.”

Back to Finn––Bellamy grimaces. 

“Wait, no! Write it on your phone, and we’ll switch at the same time,” Raven says. 

There’s a moment of silence, then Clarke bursts out laughing. 

“You rated Wick?” she says. “And you realize that ‘eleventy’ isn’t a real number, right?”

“Shut up, it totally is,” Raven says. “You didn’t follow the rules either, Miss One-Hundred!”

Bellamy grins.

“What is this?” Raven continues. He peeks around the corner and sees she’s squinting at Clarke’s phone still. “Oh my god, is this a little poop emoji?”

Clarke shrugs and takes another sip of her drink. “Well, in comparison to what I get to experience now...”

Bellamy can’t hold it in any longer, and at the first laugh they both whip their heads around and spot him. 

“Hi,” he manages to say, and then snorts helplessly as he leans against the wall and cracks up.

Bellamy knows by the expression on their faces that he’s probably in trouble, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahahahahahaha


	18. Double Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Minty and Bellarke double date"

Bellamy has never seen Nathan Miller this flustered. Ever. 

His best friend isn’t the type to fidget with the cuffs of his shirt sleeves. He’s not the type to smooth his hair––as if it’s even possible for it to get messed up. He’s never been the type to jolt in shock when his phone vibrates with a new text.

He’s never been that type of person, until now.

“Dude, calm the fuck down,” Bellamy says with a smirk when Miller nearly drops his phone.

Miller levels a lethal glare at him. “Fuck off, Blake.”

“It’s going to go fine,” Bellamy says. “You’ve known him for two years. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“That means we’ve had two years to get used to being friends,” Miller mutters. “What if we––what if trying to––” 

“Date?” Bellamy interjects dryly. 

“What if it doesn’t go well? What if  _everything_ fucking crashes and burns?” Miller says.

“Well, it won’t, because one, it’s going to go  _fine,_ and two, even if for some ridiculous, unbelievable reason it doesn’t, do you really believe Monty would stop being your friend?”

Miller lowers his eyes, turns his phone over and over in his hands. “No.”

“Exactly. Now get your shit together, man. It’s almost time to go and we don’t have time to deal with any more of your angst.”

Miller sneers at him as they head out of their apartment. “Sorry, could you remind me––who was the guy so nervous about his first date with a certain blonde that I had to tackle him to keep him from leaving the apartment with mismatched shoes and toothpaste on his face?”

“Screw you, Miller,” Bellamy replies cheerfully. 

Outside, Bellamy convinces Miler to drive them to the bar, hoping that concentrating on the road will help him calm down. Grounders isn’t far away, so they  _could_ have walked, but Miller needs all the help he can get right now. 

Bellamy’s own phone buzzes.

 _I’ve wrangled Monty into the car and we’re leaving work now,_ Clarke’s texted.  _I’m a little worried he’s going to hyperventilate._

 _What’s wrong with him?_ Bellamy replies.  _Miller’s been going out of his mind._

_He’s worried about what he’s wearing, I think? He keeps groaning about how we should have picked a later time so we could have changed out of our teaching clothes into something “more flattering.”_

Bellamy snorts, but Miller’s too busy muttering under his breath about how long the red light is taking to notice. 

_Trust me, Miller wouldn’t care if he showed up in a potato sack._

_Can I tell Monty that??_ Clarke replies immediately.  _He won’t stop saying that he can’t change the tide of their relationship if the moon won’t cooperate. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. And when I tried to ask he yelled at me about it being basic physics._

Bellamy raises his eyebrows at that.  _Monty Green YELLED at you?_

_Okay, he got a teeny bit louder than normal. It was a Monty Green Yell, not a real people yell._

_Tell him if you want,_ Bellamy texts as Miller parks across the street from Grounders.  _But we’re here. See you inside, princess._

They head inside and get a booth––Clarke’s orders, because she claims a booth is more intimate than the high tables in the main bar area. 

“Calm down,” Bellamy reminds his friend one more time. Miller’s got his arms crossed tightly while his jiggling leg is making their table tremble.

“Shut up,” Miller replies. 

“Hey guys!” It’s Clarke’s voice, and Bellamy turns to see the familiar golden hair and blue eyes. 

“Hey Clarke,” Miller greets her when she waves at him.

“Thank god,” Bellamy says, though quietly enough she’s the only one raising an eyebrow at him. He stands up to kiss her hello, noticing in his periphery that Miller’s standing as well. 

Clarke hums against his mouth, and when he pulls away she darts in to place one more peck on his lips. 

“Hi,” she sighs, squeezing him in a quick hug. 

“Long day at middle school, princess?”

“The longest,” she says. “Fourth period was especially heinous. The little monsters started a clay war. I gave out six referrals and nine detentions, and the instigator got suspended.”

“Let me guess,” Bellamy says. “Cage Wallace.”

Clarke grimaces at the name of her least favorite student. “Who else?”

“Where’s Monty?” Bellamy asks, noticing Miller looking pretty pathetic as he searches the bar for the familiar mop of dark hair. 

“Bathroom,” Clarke says. “But he should be here any second.”

“That second is now,” Monty pipes up as he appears by their booth. 

“Hey man,” Bellamy says, and Monty nods. 

“Good to see you, Bellamy.”

Monty turns toward Miller, who then clears his throat. 

“Hey, uh, Monty. You look––you look good.”  

Monty smiles. “Hi Nate. You look nice, too.”

“Okay!” Clarke interrupts brightly. “We’re going to get the first round from the bar while you two decide what food we should order. Be right back!” She seizes Bellamy’s hand and drags him away, and Bellamy can barely keep a straight face as Monty and Miller watch them with identical and poorly-disguised expressions of panic. 

“You’re evil,” he tells his girlfriend as they wait at the bar. 

Clarke shrugs. “Whatever it takes, Bellamy. Whatever it takes.”

Bellamy laughs at her, and she bumps him with her hip. “Seriously, come on,” she says. “Those two idiots need, like, a  _minute_ alone and they’ll get over their nerves.”

Bellamy glances back at their booth, sees two heads huddled a little closer than necessary over a shared menu. 

Clarke follows his gaze just as Miller reaches out to brush Monty’s hair away from his face. Monty catches Miller’s hand before he can withdraw it completely, and just holds it. “See?” she says triumphantly. 

“You can’t blame me for being skeptical,” he counters. “We were alone for  _our_ first date, and it ended in yelling and an ice cream cone being smashed in my face.”

“Yeah, well, you’re you,” Clarke says, wrinkling her nose at him. “Nate’s bark is  _much_ worse than his bite. And Monty is a precious cupcake, so they’ll be fine.”

“Hey!” Bellamy replies indignantly as the bartender finally brings their order. “Are you saying my bark is as bad as my bite?” It sounds a little silly when he says it out loud, but he still wants to know what she means by that.

“Oh, absolutely,” Clarke says innocently, taking a sip of her rum and coke. Then she winks at him. “But don’t worry. I happen to  _love_ your bite.”

Bellamy leans forward and kisses her, nipping her lips before pulling away. “Good,” he says, satisfied by the slightly dazed look on her face. “Come on, let’s take these back to the booth.”

But when they get there and set the drinks on the table, neither Miller nor Monty look up, too engrossed in each other to bother.

Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look, and then Bellamy clears his throat. 

“Hey, I left my phone in the car.” 

Miller barely glances away from Monty long enough to toss his keys at Bellamy.

“I’ll go with you,” Clarke announces, shouldering her purse. 

The second they’re outside the bar, Bellamy looks at her. “Monty drove, right? He still has his keys?” 

Clarke nods. “Yeah, and they can always get a cab.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Bellamy says.

“So much for a double date,” Clarke muses as they slide into the car. “I’ve never felt like such third wheels in my life.”

“It’s fine. We’ll just go have our own date,” Bellamy says, pulling out into traffic. 

“Yeah?” Clarke replies, tangling her hand with the one he’s not using on the steering wheel. “What do you have in mind?”

He flashes a smile at her, squeezes her fingers gently.

“You never did get to finish that ice cream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It ended up more like an _attempt_ at a double date, but I hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts. :)


	19. Hellamy Blake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "That's why they call me Hellamy Blake." "Nobody calls you Hellamy Blake!"

She doesn’t mean to get him drunk. Honest. 

But when Octavia begs her to take Bellamy out of their apartment and  _keep_  him out so she can be alone with Lincoln for more than five minutes, Clarke isn’t quite sure where to go. Octavia deserves a little privacy––Bellamy hasn’t exactly been accommodating ever since he found out his friend and his little sister were dating, and seriously––but Clarke and Bellamy don’t usually go out, just the two of them. 

Sure, they’ll have movie nights on their living room couch when Octavia’s out working, or in her late class. And they’ll go grocery shopping together, because Bellamy always forgets Clarke’s almond milk if she doesn’t go with him. Sometimes they have laundry-folding parties. But those are normal things for a girl to do with her roommate when the third roommate is busy. 

Taking her roommate out on a Saturday night? Her very tan, curly-haired, toned, freckled, stupid-attractive male roommate? 

Definitely  _not_ a typical roommate outing.

She’s not sure what to do. Hence, the hasty decision to take Bellamy to Mount Weather and ply him with alcohol until he forgot that his best friend and his little sister were doing decidedly unplatonic things back in their apartment.

And, Clarke thinks as she watches in growing alarm as Bellamy signals for his fourth (fifth?) drink, nobody is going to say it was one of her better choices. 

Bellamy Blake is well on his way to drunk, and he’s no closer to forgetting  about his sister and Lincoln than he is to confessing his love for John Murphy.

“I don’t like him,” Bellamy says, a belligerent frown on his face as he sways a little on his barstool, his drink in his hand. “He’s old.” 

“He’s your age, Bellamy,” Clarke says. “Wow. So ancient.”

“He’s  _cradle-robbing_ ,” he complains.

“Twenty-two and twenty-eight is not a terrible age gap,” she says, exasperated. “You and I are six years apart, too; should we not be friends?”

“ _Friends_ is fine,” he says, and then his voice takes on a strangely melancholy tone. “But we can’t be more than friends. That’s wrong.”

“Why?” she asks, swirling her straw around in her own drink. She’s on her second, taking her time. 

He pauses. “I don’t remember.” His mouth forms a pout, and Clarke can’t help but imagine what little-boy-Bellamy would have looked like, all pouty and serious if he didn’t get his way. “But we can’t. Shouldn’t.  _They_ shouldn’t.”

“Well, I disagree,” Clarke says. “They can and they  _should,_  because six years isn’t a big deal and they really like each other.”

“I’m going to teach him a lesson,” Bellamy declares, ignoring her. “It’s not  _nice_ for a guy to kiss his sister’s friend.”

“Bellamy, I don’t––wait, what?” Clarke says.

“I  _said_ ,” he replies dramatically, “That it’s not  _nice_ for someone to kiss his––” Bellamy pauses, gets a funny look on his face, and clears his throat. “His friend’s sister.”

Was that simply a drunken slip of the tongue? Or a drunken hint of the truth? When Clarke catches herself hoping, rather desperately, that it’s the latter––that he meant  _sister’s friend,_ not  _friend’s sister,_ and that he meant Clarke––she downs the rest of her cocktail. 

Clarke’s lived with her best friend and her friend’s older brother for four years. If he ever felt anything for her, he would have had plenty of time to do something about it. 

“You’re not going to win any fights in your current state,” Clarke tells him instead.

"I can do whatever the hell I want." Bellamy fishes out his wallet and slaps far too much money down on the bar before slipping off of his stool. She sighs and pockets the extra before following. He hasn’t gotten far, and Clarke trails behind him as he strides out the door. 

“Whatever the hell I want,” he grumbles again when he notices her. “That’s why they call me Hellamy Blake.”

“Nobody calls you Hellamy Blake!” Clarke says. 

“ _Yet_ ,” Bellamy replies. 

When he tries to pull open the driver side door of Clarke’s car, she grabs his arm. 

“Whoa, I don’t think so,” she says. “You’re not driving and you’re  _not_ ruining your sister’s night.”

Bellamy’s eyes have been on her hand since she grabbed his arm, and as his gaze stays focused, she slowly realizes how warm the skin under hers is.

“You should let me go, Clarke,” he says, “Or else I’m going to do something very stupid.”

Clarke glares at him. “If I let you go, you’ll  _definitely_ do something stupid.”

“Fine,” he snaps, and his hands are cupping her her cheeks and his mouth is on hers, and he tastes like whiskey and soda and Clarke’s barely gotten a taste when he wrenches himself away. 

He stares at her, irises thin rings around huge pupils, and then pulls his hands off of her as if she’s started to burn him.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says slowly. “What the  _hell_ was that?”

“Something stupid,” he mutters, eyes downcast.

She swallows. “Why––why is it stupid?”

His eyes snap to hers. 

“What?” he asks. 

She licks her lips. “It’s just, the way I see it…the only thing stupid about that kiss was that it took you four years and liquid courage to do it.”

Then she frowns. “Wait, how drunk are you really? Please don’t tell me this was just something funny your drunk brain came up with.”

He’s staring at her, the chagrin on his face rapidly sliding into delight. “Not drunk. Well, a little drunk,” he amends when she raises an eyebrow. “But it’s not something my drunk brain came up with. More like something my drunk brain set free from my sober brain.” 

She gestures for him to continue. 

“I just––you’re Octavia’s best friend,” he says. “And my roommate.  _And_  when I met you, you were barely legal. It just seemed sort of skeevy for me to admit I was into you, and then I got stuck telling myself  _no._ ”

He hesitates. “But––but you don’t mind that I’m six years older than you?”

Clarke rolls her eyes and circles his waist with her arms. His come around her out of reflex, but then he holds her closer.

“I told you, Bellamy,” she says. “A difference of six years isn’t a big deal when you really, really like each other.”

“And we do?”

She smiles. “Yeah. We do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gOOD GRIEF these dorks. ;D Let me know your thoughts!


	20. By the Lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Hey there! How about a classic competitive Bellarke: we are both leaders at a summer camp and my kids are going to kick your kids asses in the camp competition?"

It starts by the lake. Cabin Seven′s campers are naturals with the canoes, and she flashes a victorious smile at Bellamy, who’s watching with chagrin as the kids of Cabin Twelve flounder in the shallows of the lake. 

“Whatever,” he tells her later at the campfire. “Who even uses canoes anymore? It’s not like it’s a useful life skill, being able to use a couple of fat sticks to paddle yourself around in a skinny boat.”

Clarke scoffs. “If it’ll help you feel better about my kids kicking your kids’ asses in every activity, sure, keep telling yourself that.”

He snags her s’more just as she’s about to eat the perfectly roasted piece of heaven, and takes a big, messy bite. He puts it back in her hand, graham cracker crumbling, chocolate and marshmallow oozing out on her palm. 

“May all your marshmallows burn,” she curses him. 

“I bet you my kids will beat yours in more activities by the end of the week,” Bellamy says through a mouthful of Clarke’s s’more, ignoring her.

Clarke rolls her eyes and licks the chocolate that’s slowly melting down her wrist. “You wish,” she says, and swipes her tongue against stray marshmallow. 

Bellamy’s strangely quiet, and she glances up to see him staring, transfixed, at her mouth. 

She quirks an eyebrow at him, considers the way he jerks when he catches her catching him watching. “Want to make it interesting?” she asks, and sucks a sweet, sticky finger into her mouth. 

She’s enchanted when he nearly goes cross-eyed at the sight, and clears his throat loudly. 

“What do you mean?”

Clarke gives up and stuffs the rest of the treat into her mouth, closing her eyes and moaning happily at the taste. 

When she opens them again, Bellamy’s shifting as if uncomfortable on the log next to her. “You okay, there?” she asks. 

“Fine,” he says tightly. “What did you mean, make it interesting?”

Clarke shrugs and looks over at the campers. They range in age from five to seventeen, though all of Clarke and Bellamy’s campers are middle schoolers. All of the campers are currently being led in a sing-along by Camp Jaha’s director and founder, Thelonious. 

“I meant, we could bet something. If my cabin wins more activities, I get––I don’t know, I get to pick all the pitstops on our drive back to Arkadia.”

“But I wanted to go to that gold rush museum on the drive back,” Bellamy complains. “This is our last year to finally go!”

“Your last year, old man,” she reminds him. “I’m still eligible to be a cabin leader for two more years.”

He blinks at her. “You’d come back without me?”

Clarke opens her mouth, then pauses. She’s never been at Camp Jaha without Bellamy, not when they were campers themselves being forced to go by their mothers because they spent too much time cooped up with their history books and easels, respectively. And not since they came back as cabin leaders, the only two of their group of friends to decide they wanted to. They’ve carpooled for the three hour long drive from Arkadia to Camp Jaha each summer. 

Bellamy’s already hit the upper limit of the age range for cabin leader, but Clarke’s only twenty, so she could apply to be a cabin leader for two more years.

But...

“No,” she says. “I wouldn’t.”

His eyes go soft and the firelight plays against the angles of his face as he grins at her. Clarke can’t help but smile back. 

“Which means this is  _the_ year to go to the dumb museum,” she says. “Winner picks pitstops?”

“May the best Cabin Leader win,” he counters.   

“Thanks; I will,” Clarke says.

“My campers are going to destroy yours,” he replies. “You’re going to learn about the Gold Rush and  _like it._ ” 

She elbows him. “Make me another s’more.” 

* * *

Cabin Twelve wins the horseshoes tournament, Cabin Seven the archery contest. They tie for last place in the bracelet-making competition, which makes Bellamy laugh at Clarke when she grumbles about not passing on her artistic abilities to a single camper in Cabin Seven. 

In the end, it comes down to the chess tournament, of all things. But Lexa from Cabin Seven is ruthless, and sacrifices her knight without a second thought, and that leads the twelve-year-old to a quick victory against Cage, who’s left gaping at the destruction of his attempted strategy.

Bellamy grins ruefully at Clarke as she wiggles her hips in a little victory dance later that night when their campers are in the mess hall. She and Bellamy are down by the lake. 

“We won, we won, we won!” she chants. “Kiss the Gold Rush goodbye, mister, because we’re going to Six Flags instead!” 

She only stops dancing in the quiet of the evening when warm fingers on her waist make her still. 

“Hey,” Bellamy says, thumb stroking over the cotton of her camp t-shirt. “Congratulations on winning a pointless contest.”

Distracted by his touch, it takes Clarke a second to register his words register. When she does, she scowls and shoves at his chest. He huffs a laugh. 

“You’re just mad your cabin didn’t win,” Clarke insists, “because  _clearly_ I’m the most magnificent creature on the face of the planet and there was no way my cabin was going to lose.”

“Clearly,” he agrees, but his voice is soft and his hands are firm as he uses his hold on her waist to tug her up against him. 

Her lips part a little in surprise, her hands coming to rest on his chest. The warmth of him is soothing in the cool air. 

“I don’t...” She pauses and licks her lips. “I don’t remember this being part of the competition rules.”

Bellamy shrugs. “Loser’s consolation prize,” he tells her. “It’s only fair.” The nerves are clear on his face, but so is the desire. 

“Oh,” Clarke says, delight blooming in her chest even while her heart thuds almost painfully in anticipation. “Well, if it’s all in the interest of fairness.”

But when he finally kisses her, it doesn’t seem fair at all that they waited until now to do so. She tells him so, breathlessly, when he pulls away from her mouth.

He buries his face in his hair and laughs, arms hugging her tight. “We’ll just have to make up for it somehow, princess.” 

Clarke hugs him back, hiding her giddy grin in his shirt. “Good,” she says. 

It ends by the lake. Or the competition does, at least––everything else begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I messed with their age difference a little, but hopefully that didn't bother anyone. This ended up being more friendly!competition than snarky!competition, but I hope you still enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts! :)


	21. Art Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From ichabodjane on tumblr: “I’m in art class and I just opened a cupboard to find a tiny person (you) squished inside and you just looked at and said ‘shh i’m hiding’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two posts in one day #can'tbetamed
> 
> This spun away from the original height difference point of the prompt, but hopefully it still entertains you!

Bellamy isn’t quite sure what to do. 

When Octavia had called him earlier that day, telling him that Lincoln was sick and that she couldn’t get off work in time to pick Eli up, Bellamy had immediately offered to get his nephew from kindergarten.

Of course, as soon as the words came out of his mouth, Octavia was thanking him cheerfully and telling him to make sure he gets Eli to his art class at the kids’ museum by two-thirty, sharp. 

“Art class?” he had echoed. “Wait––” 

“Thanks, Bell, I really appreciate it!” his sister had interrupted, and then had promptly hung up the phone. 

So now he’s picked Eli up from school, fed him a snack, and arrived at the children’s museum in time for the beginning art class Eli’s apparently been begging to go to ever since he went to one of Lincoln’s showcases for the first time last month.

But the teacher is nowhere to be found. 

“Uncle Bell?” Eli says. “What do we do?”

“Uh,” Bellamy says, glancing around the room. A bunch of other people are waiting, too, ranging through all ages. Most of them look like they’re there in groups, though one guy has his things spread over an entire table, and is sitting alone. 

In the back of the classroom, there’s a long counter with sinks––for cleaning brushes and stuff, Bellamy imagines. The cabinet doors under the counter are each labeled with different types of supplies.

“Uncle  _Bell_ ,” Eli prompts him with a gusty sigh that he absolutely gets from his mother. 

“Look, kid, I’m not the teacher,” Bellamy says, ruffling Eli’s dark hair. Eli bats his hand away with a pout. 

“I want to  _draw_ ,” the boy complains. He crosses his arms and lifts his chin––Bellamy would blame this on Octavia, too, if he didn’t see the gesture in his own mirror on a regular basis. 

“Okay, okay,” Bellamy says, and points his nephew toward the cabinets in the back of the room. “Why don’t we see if we can find some drawing stuff while we wait?”

Eli bounds toward the cabinets, scanning the labels on each one with a very serious expression before pulling open the cabinet marked  _Paper._

“What the  _f–_ –” Bellamy barely cuts off a decidedly not-kid-friendly word when, instead of being confronted with stacks of paper, he and his nephew come face to face with a small blonde woman crammed into the cupboard.

“What are you doing in there?” he hisses at her instead, pushing Eli behind his back and away from the clearly insane woman masquerading as art supplies. 

“ _Shh_ ,” she whispers back. Her face is panicked––pretty, Bellamy notes, but panicked. “I’m hiding.”

“Why?” Eli asks, voice hushed and eyes as wide as hers as he peeks around from behind Bellamy.

The blonde manages a little smile for Eli before looking at Bellamy pleadingly. “There’s someone in the classroom who shouldn’t be here.”

“What do you mean?” he replies quietly, frowning. 

She bites her lip, hugs her legs even closer to her chest in the tiny cupboard. “The guy sitting alone over there. I have a restraining order against him. And I forgot my cell at home, so I couldn’t call the cops when I saw him coming in, so I freaked out and hid.”

The look on her face is enough for Bellamy to believe her. “Alright, just stay there, okay?” he says. “I’m going to call them for you.”

“Thank you,” she breathes, and he carefully closes the cabinet door to conceal her again. He doesn’t know what Loner Guy over there did to get a restraining order, but in any case Bellamy doesn’t want to draw his attention.

While Bellamy pulls out his phone, Eli opens the cupboard next to the one the blonde is hiding in. 

“Hi,” he hears the kid say in a whisper. “I’ll wait with you.”

“Eli!” he hisses, darting a glance back at Loner Guy. He’s fiddling with something metal in his hand––not a knife, at least, Bellamy notes gratefully; a necklace maybe?––and he hasn’t noticed their activities in the back of the classroom. 

Eli is already in the cupboard, and waves at him. “Hurry up, Uncle Bell!” he says before closing the door behind him. 

Bellamy stifles his groan, attempts to lean casually against the counter, and dials Miller at work. 

There’s a bit of difficulty as Bellamy tries to convey that he’s not just calling to chat while Miller’s at the precinct, but without using words like “cops” or “restraining order” that could catch Loner Guy’s attention. But eventually the message gets through, and Miller promises to have someone there in a couple minutes. 

He ends the call, and tries not think about how badly his sister will kick his ass if this story gets out. 

 _Yeah, I could have left with him when I realized there was weird shit going on, but come on! Eli was in the cupboard the whole time, he was fine,_ he imagines trying to convince Octavia. 

He’s going to die. His sister is going to kill him, and it’s not going to be fast or merciful. 

He waits, whole body tense. If Loner Guy heads this direction, Bellamy’s punching first and asking questions later. 

But just as the man starts to get antsy, shoving his hand through his shaggy hair and shifting restlessly, a couple of uniformed police officers enter the classroom. They talk to Loner Guy in low voices, and then the man is escorted out under the highly interested gaze of all the other people in the classroom. 

The second Loner Guy and the police are gone, conversation erupts among those patient enough to still be waiting for the instructor to show, and Bellamy uses the chatter as a cover while he opens the cupboard doors.

“It’s safe,” he tells Eli and the blonde––they’re both squinting at the sudden light, and it looks like he’s interrupted them in the middle of a game of rock-paper-scissors. 

“Come on, Miss Clarke,” Eli says, tumbling out of the cupboard. “We can do the lesson now!” 

The blonde–– _Miss Clarke––_ unfolds herself from the cupboard with a lot less ease and a lot more wincing than his nephew, and Bellamy finds himself offering her a hand. 

She blinks at it, then offers him a blinding smile as she takes it. He hauls her to her feet; once fully standing, she only reaches his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” she says, her voice achingly grateful. “I could have been stuck in that cupboard for hours.”

He shrugs and belatedly lets go of her hand. He tries to flex his fingers discreetly at his side––they feel kind of tingly. 

“Can we draw now?” Eli asks, tugging on Clarke’s hand. The kid’s looking up at her adoringly, and Bellamy wonders what the hell they talked about in the cupboard to have Eli taking to her so quickly. 

Clarke bites her lip and glances at the clock on the classroom wall. The lesson is supposed to be an hour long, and it’s already after three in the afternoon. 

“I think I’m going to have to reschedule the class,” she says. “We need the whole hour to do the lesson.” 

Eli looks devastated, and tugs at her hand again. Bellamy recognizes the signs of meltdown mode, and is about to try and distract Eli with an offer of ice cream or something, when Clarke crouches down to Eli’s level. (It doesn’t take her much effort––this woman is seriously small.)

“ _But_ ,” Clarke says, “I’d be happy to do a private lesson with you and your uncle, if you want?” Her eyes meet Bellamy’s over Eli’s shoulder. “It’s the least I can do, after you two saved me.”

Something flip-flops in his stomach, and he finds himself nodding with as much enthusiasm as Eli. 

“That would be great,” Bellamy tells her. He’s never been much of an artist, but it’s hard to imagine having a  _bad_ time getting taught about art by this somewhat-crazy blonde. 

Eli whispers loudly to Clarke, “Uncle Bell’s a  _really_ bad drawer.”

“Hey!” Bellamy says indignantly, and Eli grins unrepentantly at him. “You little delinquent, I’ll teach  _you_ ––”

“That’s okay. I’m a  _really_ good teacher,” Clarke interrupts as she stands, and when she smiles at him over Eli’s head, he can’t help but smile back. 

“I could present a challenge,” he admits. “My skills are limited to the occasional stick figure. Sometimes I can manage a tree, but not always.”

“Well,” Clarke says, “it’s a good thing I love a challenge.” 

* * *

Though Eli is a natural, she gives up on teaching Bellamy how to draw after two and a half lessons. But his next challenge is that she go on a date with him, and that one has much better results. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed; let me know your thoughts! <3


	22. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "I had a sex dream about you and now I can't look you in the eye"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ft. Raven + Clarke BFFs 5ever

Her slightly glazed expression tips her best friend off the second Clarke wanders into their kitchen far too early that morning.

“Oh my god,” Raven says, setting her mug down on the table so hard that some coffee sloshes over the edge. “Did you get laid last night? Shit, is he still  _here_?”

“Raven!” Clarke says. 

“Sorry, is  _she_ still here?”

“No one’s here,” Clarke groans, slipping into the chair next to Raven and dropping her head to the table with a thunk. 

“Clarke,” Raven says after a moment of silence. Clarke tries to ignore her. “Clarke. Clarke.  _Clarke_ ,” her friend sings, punctuating each word with a poke to Clarke’s arm. 

“I was raised by a surgeon,” Clarke replies, voice muffled. “I know how to kill you slowly and painfully.”

“Shut up, you love me,” Raven says, and pokes her again. “And you know I’m not going to stop until you explain why you look like you got screwed six ways to Sunday.”

Clarke lifts her head off the table. “I…had a dream,” she admits, her face burning.

A beat.

“You look like that from a  _dream_?” Raven asks incredulously. “Must have been one hell of a dream, Griffin.” 

The sigh she lets out is unintentionally dreamy-sounding, and Raven snickers at her. “It was  _really_ good,” Clarke says. “Like, really,  _really_ good.”

“Who was it?” Raven replies eagerly. Clarke wrinkles her nose and presses her lips together, and her friend sighs and stands up.

“Don’t make me do this,” Raven says, going to their coffeepot. 

“Do what?” Clarke asks, utterly confused.

Raven pours the last of the brewed coffee into a mug, but instead of handing it to Clarke, she holds it threateningly over the sink. 

“No!” Clarke gasps, holding out her hands and making grabby motions. “I need that!”

“Do you? Do you really?” Raven says, tilting the mug so a thin trickle of liquid starts to run over the side. “Do you know what  _I_ need, Clarke?”

“Screw you, Reyes,” Clarke replies. 

“I’ll tell you what I need,” Raven continues as if Clarke never spoke. “I need to know who dream-fucked you so good you look like a small breeze could knock you over.”

The mug tilts a little more, and Clarke finds herself blurting out, “Bellamy Blake!”

Raven stares at her for a good couple seconds. Then she walks across the kitchen, hands the mug to Clarke, and nearly doubles over laughing.

“Fuck you,” Clarke grumbles, and takes a deep gulp of her coffee.

“You––and he––” Raven gasps, hands braced on her thighs as she tries to straighten up. She’s still laughing too hard, though, and Clarke imagines that one good push would send her toppling onto her ass.

“I’m going to call Kyle,” Clarke says conversationally. “And tell him what you told me last time we went out for happy hour. What was it, exactly? That you wished you were dirty laundry so you’d have an excuse to rub yourself all over his washboard abs?”

Raven quiets abruptly. “Don’t you  _dare_ tell Wick that,” her friend replies. “You were sworn to Girl Code silence. I won’t be held responsible for my actions if you break the Code.”

Clarke sips her coffee. “You’re going to be late for your early meeting if you don’t start getting ready,” she says calmly.

Raven glances at the clock on the microwave and mutters curses under her breath.

“Don’t think this is over,” she demands, pointing an accusatory finger at Clarke. “We’re talking about this later.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Clarke waves airily. “Have a good day, honey!”

“Say hi to Mr. Blake for me, sweetie-pie!” Raven calls back to her, voice sickly sweet. 

* * *

It used to be that Clarke would have laughed just as hard as Raven if she woke up from a sex dream featuring Bellamy freaking Blake.

She did, in fact. She had woken up, blinked dazedly at her bedroom ceiling, the space between her legs still throbbing in time with her heart––and had burst out laughing at the memory of the dream. Bellamy Blake, making soft, sweet love to her? Hilarious, really, and she had laughed for a good five minutes at such a ludicrous dream.

The first time it happened, at least.

Which was a good few months ago.

She’d been able to go into work that day and treat him as normal. It wasn’t hard, considering  _normal_ with the history teacher meant being irritated out of her mind with him. He’d made it especially easy that day, taking his class to the computer lab even though she had  _very clearly_ reserved it for a graphic design lesson for her art students.

The asshole had just smirked at her when she stopped in the doorway to the lab, flustered by the sight of the occupied room, and had claimed that his students were already too far into their projects to be expected to pack up and leave the lab. And because about thirty curious high schoolers had been behind her, watching her every move, she’d been forced to give him a courteous nod and take her students back to her classroom for a mediocre lesson about perspective lines.  

So. Dream Bellamy? Not a big enough deal to make a difference with Real Life Bellamy.

Except then the dreams keep coming.

Bellamy eats her sandwich out of the teacher’s lounge fridge, licks a stray bit of mustard from the corner of his mouth when she catches him, and that night she dreams about him using his mouth and tongue in much more  _interesting_ ways.

He brings her a burrito the next day, somehow getting her order right and claiming it’s an apology gift, and she dreams he adds one hell of an orgasm to the apology.

He fucking waves at her across the parking lot after Open House night, and that night as she sleeps her brain supplies the fantasy of him taking her in the bed of his truck.

Clarke’s managed to avoid Raven finding out until today, but she’d been up late grading and had been too tired to try and bring herself back down to earth before she left her room.

And the dream––well, it was a far cry from the first one. The first seemed downright innocent in comparison to what Clarke’s clearly troubled mind came up with last night. Bellamy Blake, with his fingers drifting over her skin; Bellamy Blake, with his head between her thighs; Bellamy Blake, fucking her on one of the work tables in her classroom.

Fucking  _hell._

“Fuck  _me,”_  Clarke mutters as she tries to pull a bag of heavy clay out of her trunk. The sun is barely peeking above the horizon while she struggles in the high school parking lot.

“What’s that, princess?”

Clarke stiffens even as the word––that stupid,  _stupid_ word he’s called her ever since he found out her stepfather is the district superintendent––causes warmth leftover from her dream to stir deep in her belly.

Dream Bellamy may have a thing for calling her  _princess_ too. Clarke tries not to think about what that says about her psyche.

“Nothing,” she grits out. “Move along, Blake.”

“I could probably give you a referral for using language like that,” Bellamy Blake, teacher of all the AP history classes, and a complete pain in her ass, says. “Detention, at least.” 

Clarke huffs, tugs at the strap of her bag. Why is it so fucking  _heavy_? “Lucky for me, I’m not your student.”

Then his warmth against her back in the cool air of the early morning registers, and she stills.

“Lucky for me, I think,” he says, and his arm comes into view as he reaches past her and hauls the bag of clay out of her trunk with no effort whatsoever.

Clarke shivers, and then prays that he didn’t notice before spinning around.

“Hey!” she starts, before her eyes settle on his face and her words stick in her throat. 

 _God_ , her mind has a stupidly good memory for the pattern of his freckles and that delighted smirk he’s always got when he’s around her. She meets his eyes, feels her heartbeat quicken, and then she has to look away––her last, all-too-clear memory of those eyes is of them staring up at her as his dream-self moved his mouth against the burning flesh between her legs.

Addressing the collar of his shirt, Clarke says, “I need that,” and holds out her hand for the bag of clay.

Bellamy snorts. “You’d drop like a rock,” he tells her. “I saw you. How the hell did you even manage to get it in your car in the first place?”

“The guy at the supply store carried it out for me,” she grumbles, shutting her trunk and locking her car. “I could have done it, though.”

“Uh huh,” he says. “Sure, princess.” 

Her muscles tremble at the word, and she glares at the ground. “Don’t call me that here.”

“It’s six-thirty in the morning,” he tells her. “Nobody’s even here yet. Except us.”

Clarke growls and starts stalking away toward her building. “Why are  _you_ here so early, Blake?” she asks. “You have prep first period.”

His voice is close behind her as he follows her. “So do you.”

Clarke’s hand pauses with the key in the lock. “Yeah,” she says, clearing her throat. “So?”

“So maybe I wanted to see why the princess likes getting to campus so early,” he says, and his breath is tickling her ear and  _fuck_ this is not professional behavior, but she can’t quite bring herself to tell him off.

Instead she yanks open the door to her classroom, making sure to elbow him in the process, and sails in as he lets out a pained huff _._

“The clay can go on the counter by the sinks,” she tells him, eyes focused on writing the day’s agenda on the whiteboard. Reluctantly, she adds, “Thanks for carrying it in.”

She probably looks like an idiot who’s forgotten how to spell  _sculpt_ as she holds her marker above the board, body still as she listens for his movements. In spite of her focus, she flinches when a hand brushes her shoulder.

“No problem, princess,” Bellamy says, and Clarke turns around, shrinking away from him.

“Don’t touch me!” she squeaks, and hopes the skirt of her dress hides the way she clamps her thighs together.

Bellamy takes a quick step back, hands up in the air. “I’m sorry,” he says immediately, voice alarmed. “I didn’t––I didn’t mean to––”

Clarke risks a glance at his face––he looks stricken. The unfamiliar expression allows her to keep meeting his eyes. 

“No, it’s––it’s okay,” Clarke says, tripping over the words. “You didn’t do anything––anything bad.”

His brow furrows. “Then why are you acting like I have the bubonic fucking plague or something?”

“I––it’s just best if you don’t touch me,” she says. 

“Okay,” he says slowly, and then his expression becomes considering. “So, you don’t  _want_  me to touch you,” he states. 

Clarke swallows hard. She should just agree, should just nod and say she doesn’t  _want_ him to touch her.

“It’s best if you don’t,” she repeats instead, and the corners of his mouth curl up into a wicked, wicked smile.  _Fuck me_ , she thinks. 

“So you  _do_ want me to touch you.” His voice is low, and it seems to rumble out of his chest and straight to Clarke’s sex. 

“Um,” she says. 

“Yes or no, Clarke,” he says, lifting a hand until it ghosts just above the surface of her neck. 

She curses her traitorous body when the smallest whimper slips out of her mouth.

“Answer me,” Bellamy says, stepping closer. “Please.”

It’s the  _please_ that does it. His words are heated and heavy with meaning, but the  _please_ is earnest, almost desperate. 

“ _Shit_ ,” she whispers. “Yes, okay?  _Yes._ ”

His hand descends to her skin, thumb tracing the column of her throat, and he crowds her against the whiteboard.

Clarke shivers and tips her chin up, eyes drifting half-shut. Bellamy brushes his knuckles across her jaw before curling his hand around her nape––the gentle touch making her skin prickle.

“Good,” he says, his lips catching against hers as he speaks. “Because I’ve wanted to touch you for fucking  _ever,_ princess.” 

“ _God_ ,” Clarke groans, “Then just fucking  _do_  it, Blake!”

His mouth covers hers before she even finishes the last word, his other hand slipping down to squeeze her thigh while hers clutch at his shoulders. Their noses bump as they kiss fervently, and Clarke wonders why on earth she didn’t just give in to her dreams’ urgings before this. His lips are urgent against hers, but Clarke is the one to bite his lower lip until he opens his mouth to her with a moan.

He tastes sweet––more than a normal sweet, and she pulls her mouth from his.

“You drink  _hot chocolate_  every morning?” she asks. 

“It’s how I stay so sweet,” he snarks before turning his attention to her neck.

“ _Sweet_?” she echoes. “Like  _hell_ you’re––” Both of his hands go to her thighs and hoist her off the ground, Bellamy pinning her between his body and the whiteboard, and Clarke’s words are cut off in an embarrassingly loud groan when his belt buckle lands right between her thighs. The fabric of her dress doesn’t act as much of a barrier, and she’s gone from zero to embarrassingly close in a matter of minutes under Bellamy’s attention. 

Bellamy’s laugh is muffled against her collarbone, and when she pulls his hair in punishment he nips her in retaliation.

“ _Shit_ ,” Clarke chokes out, and then tugs on his hair again. “Don’t you  _dare_ leave a mark where my students will see!”

“Okay,” he agrees, and his lips trail lower as he nudges the bodice of her dress down to reveal the swell of a breast.

“Oh god,” is all she can say. His tongue explores the lace edge of her bra, and then his teeth graze her skin. Her hips jolt against his, and he curses before surging up to kiss her messily. Clarke can hardly breathe, because the reality is far better than the dream, and she knows she should hate that Bellamy Blake is the one driving her wild but she just  _doesn’t––_

“Oh!” 

Bellamy freezes against her; Clarke pulls her mouth from his and wriggles until he drops her back to her feet.

“Maya!” she squeaks. Bellamy clears his throat awkwardly and tries to hide behind Clarke as she moves away from the board, fixing her dress. 

“Hi,” Bellamy says lamely. 

“I’m sorry.” The biology teacher stares at the floor, her cheeks pink. “I didn’t mean to, uh, interrupt anything.”

“Oh, you didn’t––I mean, we’re not––” 

Maya meets her eyes, and though her furious blush remains, her skeptical amusement is the foremost emotion on her face. 

Clarke sighs, face heating, and she can hear Bellamy’s badly-concealed chuckle. 

“Were you wanting something?” Clarke asks. 

“I wanted to know if you were using your overhead projector today? Mine’s still on the fritz and I need it for my review lesson,” Maya replies. 

Clarke shakes her head. “Um, no. Go ahead and take it.”

The other teacher thanks her awkwardly and wheels the overhead cart out of Clarke’s classroom. 

She and Bellamy are left in silence, and Clarke’s finding it utterly impossible to meet his eyes.  _Again._

“Students are going to start arriving soon,” she says eventually, eyes on his button-up. 

Bellamy hums in agreement. “Good thing Maya caught us instead of one of them.”

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut and groans a little. 

A pair of now-familiar lips press a quick, sweet kiss to her mouth, but when her eyes snap open Bellamy’s already halfway out the door. He gives her a wave and one of those  _infuriating_ smirks of his.

“Don’t worry, princess, I’ll be more careful next time,” he says, and then disappears.

Clarke’s left staring, dazed, at her empty classroom; then his words register.

“Wait, what do you mean,  _next time_?"

* * *

Raven comes home that night, takes one look at Clarke’s face, and tackles her onto the couch demanding to know  _everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really not sure how this particular AU set-up came out of this prompt but I regret nothing. Hope you enjoyed; let me know your thoughts!


	23. Festival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From cinnamonandseasalt on tumblr: "Bellarke + 47 [Meeting at a festival AU]"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ft. Uncle!Bellamy because I can. ;)
> 
> Also, I AM in the middle of writing a sequel to the previous oneshot in this collection, "Dreams." But it's taking a little longer to finish that one, and in the meantime I was inspired to write this! Hope you like it.

Octavia decides to stay with Lincoln at the pottery booth––his brother-in-law is in deep conversation with the local potter about the pigments she uses in her glazes. But Eli and Nora are absolutely  _not_ interested, so Bellamy signals to his sister that he’s taking the kids with him to explore more of the annual Harvest Festival. 

“What do you want to see?” he asks his niece. She’s tugging at his hand, leading him through the crowd with the most determined expression he thinks he’s ever seen. Eli’s balanced on Bellamy’s hip, snuggled into his side and held in place with Bellamy’s other hand. It’s the middle of the toddler’s normal nap time, and Bellamy’s just glad the boy is sleepy instead of throwing a too-tired tantrum.

“I don’t know,” she chirps. Then she gasps. “Can I have a crown?”

Bellamy follows the five-year-old’s eagerly pointing finger. They’re at the end of the row of craft booths, and the last one is full of those circlets made of fake flowers and ribbons. For a girl like Nora, who spends her time at his house after school pretending to be a fierce warrior princess, it’s the perfect accessory. 

He lets her tow him closer. “Sure.” He may spoil his sister’s kids a little too much, but he doesn’t care. 

Up close, he sees that they’re actually really well-made; the cut ends of the ribbon are seared so they don’t unravel, and when he shakes one, the flowers stay firmly attached. 

Eli wiggles until Bellamy lets him down, and the boy makes a beeline for the rack of circlets Nora’s also investigating.

“Hey. You can look, but no hands, okay?” Bellamy’s not sure if Eli is listening, but Nora at least nods. 

“I have c’own?” Eli asks, looking up at him. 

Bellamy glances at the frilly, flowery, beribboned crowns filling the booth, ranging in colors from jewel tones to pretty pastels.

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“Oh, thank god,” a voice says, and he turns to see a woman smiling at him. One of the flower crowns, one that’s all different shades of blue, is perched on top of her wavy blonde hair.

He raise an eyebrow. 

“I get too many parents telling their boys they can’t have one because they’re ‘too girly,’” she explains. 

Bellamy grimaces. “They’re kids. Let them wear whatever the hell they want.”

“Exactly. It’s nice to meet someone who agrees.” 

“Yeah. And it wouldn’t exactly be fair to let my niece have one, but say no to my nephew,” he adds. 

“Uncle Bell!” Nora pipes up then. “Will you help me?”

He raises an eyebrow and waits. 

“ _Please_?” Nora adds, popping up and down on her toes with excitement. 

“What do you need, kid?” he asks.

She points at the top rack of circlets, just beyond her reach. “Can I have the rainbow one? Please?” Bellamy hands her the circlet and she jams it down on her head. 

“Ooh, good choice,” the blonde says, and Nora and Bellamy both look over at her. “That one’s one of my favorites, with all the colors.”

Nora beams at her. “I like yours!”  Then she starts twirling rapidly so she can see the ribbons of her circlet float the air.

“What about you, young sir?” the woman asks Eli, crouching down next to him. He startles a little bit at the proximity of a stranger, but Bellamy smiles at him reassuringly when Eli looks around for him. 

The blonde waits patiently until Eli looks back at her, a timid smile on his face. 

“What color do you like?” she asks. Eli points shyly at one on the middle rack, all greens and blues and purples. 

“I like that one too,” she says conspiratorially, and sets it carefully on Eli’s head. It’s a little too big, slipping down and resting on his ears, but when Eli looks at him with a glowing grin, Bellamy nods solemnly. 

“Very pretty,” he tells the little boy. 

“P’itty,” the boy agrees in a satisfied tone. 

Bellamy hands over a couple bills for the circlets. “Say thank you to the pretty princess,” he tells Eli, who looks at the woman with wide eyes.

“P’incess?”

“My real name is Clarke,” she says with a mischievous smile. “Not princess.”

Her words make Bellamy pause, his interest piquing even more than it had at the sight of her pretty blue eyes and the little beauty mark above her lip. But they make Eli’s eyes rapidly fill up instead.

“Not p’incess?” he says. His face screws up and Bellamy stifles a groan just as his nephew lets loose the first wail. 

“Way past nap time,” he mutters in explanation, stooping to pick Eli up. The boy clings to him like a starfish, and Bellamy murmurs soothing nothings to him while rubbing his back. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she looks genuinely apologetic. 

Bellamy opens his mouth to respond, but Nora beats him to it.

“Don’t worry,” she says matter-of-factly. “Eli cries all the time.”

He snorts, and his nephew pulls his teary face out of Bellamy’s neck to glare down at his sister. “No!”

“Yeah huh,” she sings back to him. “Crybaby Eli!”

“ _No_!” 

“Nora––” Bellamy starts. 

“Just because I’m not a princess doesn’t mean you aren’t,” Clarke says in an offhand manner, and Nora stops making faces at Eli immediately. 

“Huh?”

“Well, are you a princess?” Clarke prompts. 

Nora nods. “I’m a warrior princess. Sometimes I fight Uncle Bell, but he’s really bad at it and always dies really loud.” 

Clarke looks like she’s struggling not to smile as she speaks. “Well, the thing about princesses––even warrior ones––is that they’re princesses on the inside, too. And that means always having courage, and always being kind.”

Nora squints at her, then her little shoulders droop as she apparently accepts Clarke’s words. 

“Sorry, Eli,” she mumbles, then peeks up at Clarke. When Clarke nods encouragingly, she grins and hugs the blonde tight around the waist before bounding over to Bellamy. 

Bellamy had taken in the whole thing in stunned silence, but now he says, “Are you  _sure_ you’re not a princess? Because that was some serious Disney princess shi––er,  _stuff_.”

Clarke shrugs, her cheeks pink, and opens her mouth to reply when they’re interrupted. 

“Hey!” A dark-haired young woman greets Clarke, a little out of breath. “Sorry, Jasper was late to pick me up and then we couldn’t find a place to park.” 

“It’s fine, Maya,” Clarke says. “You’re just in time. The judging doesn’t start for another ten minutes.” 

“Judging?” Bellamy interjects curiously. 

Maya flashes a distracted smile at him and starts counting the money in the booth’s cashbox, but Clarke grimaces at him as she heads away from the booth and into the open area of the festival. Bellamy had planned to head that way next anyway, so he and Nora keep pace with her, Eli once again falling asleep on his hip. 

“My mom’s kind of the mayor? And she signed me up to judge the festival’s pumpkin contest.”

Bellamy can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out. “Are you serious?”

“What?” 

“You’re judging  _pumpkins._ ” He waits for her to realize the joke, but she and Nora just stare at him with identical puzzled faces. “What are you supposed to judge  _pumpkins_ on? How good a carriage they make?”

Her lips form a tiny ‘o’ when she makes the connection, and she wrinkles her nose at him. “Well, that would certainly be more fun than weighing and measuring them, but sadly, I’m not Cinderella.” 

“Sure you’re not, princess,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. 

“Have fun at the festival, you two,” she tells Nora and Eli. “Keep your uncle in line.” 

“What line?” Nora asks, confused, and Bellamy grins at Clarke. 

“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat. “Do you––do you maybe want to meet up later? Maybe tomorrow, when I don’t have these two delinquents,” he adds, nodding to his niece and nephew.  

“But I don’t even know your name,” she replies, her voice teasing, and he feels himself flush a little. 

“Bellamy,” he says. “My name is Bellamy Blake.”

She considers him, then smiles. “Meet me by the pumpkins at the stroke of twelve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I totally reference both the 1950 and 2015 versions of Disney's Cinderella. #can'tbetamed
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts; I appreciate every one so much! <3


	24. Old Marrieds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy and Clarke have all their friends over for dinner in their new place, and Octavia and Raven start teasing them about being old marrieds until Clarke says well actually and shows them the ring..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The teasing's not restricted to Raven and Octavia, but I hope you enjoy!

Clarke’s pretty proud of their new house. It’s a far cry from the tiny apartment they lived in for the last three years, and an ever farther cry from the dorm rooms they lived in when they first started dating. 

She and Bellamy are  _finally_ all moved in: Clarke’s art is hung on the brightly-painted walls, Bellamy’s bookshelves flank the entertainment center in their living room, the stainless steel pots that were a housewarming present from her parents hang from a pretty rack over the stove in the kitchen island. 

Their doorbell rings just as Clarke is starting to slip back into her dinner party clothes––Bellamy may have been the opposite of helpful when she requested a hand doing up her zipper, and while she’s flushed and satisfied, she’s far from ready to face their friends. 

“You’re going to get that, and you’re going to stall them,” she tells him, running her fingers through her embarrassingly obvious sex hair.  Bellamy, on the other hand, always looks like he has sex hair, and since he’s already dressed no one other than Clarke knows what he’s just been up to. 

Bellamy grins at her. “Am I?”

Clarke raises an eyebrow as she gives up and starts twisting her hair into a braid. “I mean, I could go answer the door, but I’d have to go like this.” 

His eyes rake her form up and down, taking in the lacy plum-colored undergarments, the way her exposed skin still glows pink with pleasure. 

“Yeah, okay. I’ll just––” He points at the bedroom door as the doorbell rings again. 

She grins at him. “I’ll be out in a minute.” 

He starts to leave the room, then darts over to her and kisses her quickly. 

“Hurry up, princess,” he says, and closes the door behind him. 

She does; just moments later, she’s wearing her favorite dress (what, it has  _pockets_ ) as she slips into the living room to greet their friends. 

It’s funny how they’ve all settled into pairs, and Clarke’s just grateful that none of them are annoying assholes she has to put up with just because they’re dating her friend. Raven is admiring the welded candlesticks on the mantle––her own handiwork, as Clarke can hear her pointing out to Wick, who’s got his arm around Raven’s waist. Octavia’s leaning into Lincoln’s side while she eggs on Monty and Jasper. The two are arguing about whether Portal 2 is more fun in single player or in co-op mode, and Maya and Miller are watching in fond exasperation.

Bellamy’s nowhere to be seen, and Clarke spends a few minutes saying hello before wandering into the kitchen to find him. 

He’s pulling the lasagna out of the oven; once he’s set it down on the stove, she slips her arms around his waist and rests her cheek on his back. 

“You look good in our kitchen.” 

She can feel him laugh as he lets her lean on him. “I see how it is now. I’m just a pretty prop for your perfect new house.”

“Damn straight,” she replies, and squeezes him tight enough that he lets out a surprised wheeze. 

“Ugh, you guys are so married,” Raven says from the doorway. “I need alcohol if I’m going to deal with you like this.”

“Shut up,” Clarke tells her, but lets go of Bellamy to help her pull out a bunch of different drinks. Their other friends filter in, and Clarke distributes beers, glasses of wine, and sodas to whoever wants what. 

“Okay, okay,” Bellamy calls over the animated chatter. “Go sit down; dinner’s almost on the table.”

“I’ll grab the salad and the garlic bread,” Clarke says. Bellamy drops a kiss on her mouth, and Clarke blinks at him.

“Had to get one in before you singlehandedly eat all of the garlic bread,” he teases, and she sticks her tongue out at him. 

“See? They act so married,” Clarke hears Raven say.

“Totally. They’re like an eighty-year-old couple trapped in young, hot bodies,” Octavia replies. 

Bellamy nudges Clarke with an elbow; the lasagna is in his oven-mitt-clad hands. 

“You hear?” she says. “We’re young and hot.” 

“We’ve already established that you’re with me for my pretty looks,” Bellamy replies. “Hurry up and grab the food.”

Their friends fall upon the meal as if they haven’t eaten in a week, and somehow all that’s left of the bread for Clarke is a pitiful heel. She drinks her soda and eats the rest of her food, but stares at the little piece of bread mournfully. Bellamy was only exaggerating a little earlier; Clarke  _loves_ his garlic bread. 

She hears a dramatic sigh, and a big hunk of it appears on her plate as Bellamy trades his piece for hers. 

She turns and beams at him. “I love you.” 

“Yeah, yeah, love you too,” he says, using the bread to mop up the sauce left from his lasagna while Clarke scarfs down the bread.

It’s Jasper who snorts this time. “You guys are ridiculous. My parents’ thirtieth anniversary was last month and they act less married than you two.”

“Jasper, be nice,” Maya says. To Bellamy and Clarke she adds, “I think you two are sweet. You show that you don’t need to be married to be committed.” The last word is said in a very pointed manner, and Jasper flushes. 

Clarke glances at Bellamy, and he answers her unspoken question with a nod. She smiles back, then turns to their friends. 

“Well, actually,” she says, and sets her left hand on top of the table. The ring she’d slipped out of her pocket gleams from her finger.

“Holy  _shit_ ,” Raven exclaims, grabbing her hand and pulling it closer to her eyes. “Is that thing real?”

Clarke snorts. “I’m not going to wear a fake engagement ring.”

Octavia shrieks, standing up and making her way around the table to throw her arms around Clarke. Clarke laughs as the other woman squeezes her tight and presses their cheeks together.

“Congratulations,” Lincoln says when he gets up to coax his girlfriend back to her seat.

The rest of their friends are suspiciously silent, and that’s when Clarke notices the disgruntled expressions on everybody’s face but Wick’s as they pass him various crumpled up bills. 

“Oh my god, did you guys  _bet_ on when we’d get engaged?” Clarke asks. 

Most of them shrug, and Monty replies. “We’ve bet on everything about you guys,” he says. “It’s easy entertainment.”

Miller sighs. “Six more months and I would have won.” 

Bellamy grins wickedly at Clarke and winks; she looks back at him, puzzled, until his next words come out of his mouth.

“Yeah, well, we figured it’d be a good thing to do before the kid comes,” he says nonchalantly. Clarke stares at him, cheeks heating, and then the room erupts in frantic questions. 

“Clarke’s pregnant?”

“I’m going to be an aunt?”

“ _I’m_ going to be an aunt, Raven, jesus; get your own niece!”

“Wait, is it a girl?”

“No, it’s a boy, I bet!”

“Does this mean it’s a shotgun wedding?”

“I won the baby bet!”

“Seriously, Clarke’s knocked up?”

Bellamy bursts out laughing then, and their friends’ faces all fall as one.

“You idiots,” he says. “Of course she’s not!”

There’s a lot of grumbling, and Octavia gets up again just to punch Bellamy in the arm. Clarke’s remained silent throughout the commotion, trying to make her throat work.

Bellamy’s still smirking when she finally manages to clear her throat quietly. He glances over at her.

“Well, actually,” she says softly, and then lets the words hang in the air. 

He doesn’t seem to get it at first, but then all at once his face changes.

“Wh–what?”

Rather than the outburst that followed Bellamy’s “announcement,” this time their friends are dead silent as they all stand up from the table. 

“Uh, thanks for dinner,” Raven says. “You two just…talk amongst yourselves. We’ll see ourselves out.”

The others chime in with rapid goodbyes, and then the front door is closing behind them faster than Clarke could ever have imagined.

“So,” Clarke says eventually, twisting her engagement ring around and around her finger. “Good dinner party.”

“ _Clarke_.” 

She sighs and meets his eyes.

“You’re pregnant?” he asks. He looks like he’s seconds away from either passing out or yelling. 

“Uh huh,” she says.

“I…you’re  _pregnant_?”

“According to, like, six pregnancy tests,” she replies. 

“Holy shit,” he says. 

“Uh huh,” she says again.

“Clarke?”

“ _What_ , Bellamy?” She’s starting to get a little irritated by his non-response to the whole thing, mostly because she didn’t at  _all_ mean to tell him like this and it’s not exactly a planned thing and she knows he  _loves_ her, but she’s kind of going out of her mind now that it’s out there and he’s not saying  _anything––_

His hands frame her face and he covers her mouth in a frantic kiss, lips catching and tongues touching until Clarke can barely breathe.

“I thought you didn’t want to kiss me after I ate garlic bread,” Clarke blurts out when the kiss finally slows and they pull apart to breathe. 

Bellamy laughs and presses his forehead against hers. 

“I couldn’t care less about that right now, Clarke.”

(Clarke spends the months leading up to their wedding explaining that it’s  _not_ a shotgun wedding if they got engaged because they wanted to, not because she got pregnant; Bellamy is absolutely no help, and spends the entirety of their engagement and her pregnancy looking positively smug.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no chill, sorry <3


	25. Idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From bellamyblake-rocksmy-socks on tumblr: "Bellarke + they're always hanging out together and they're just good friends, but everyone thinks they're together and the surprise when they announce they finally are, so everyone is like 'you weren't together before?' Bonus if it involves them getting caught making out by their entire friend group."

Clarke’s not exactly sure when they became friends. Sometime, she thinks, between that time they had a screaming argument about a  _Harry Potter_ plot point and that time they conspired together to get Miller and Monty to go  _out_ with each other, already. 

But while she’s not sure when their friendship started, she knows the exact moment it solidified into something that was going to stick.

Four months ago, Bellamy showed up at the apartment she shared with Octavia and Raven, eyes glassy and cheeks red. He tried to make excuses to leave when he found out both his sister and Raven were out. But she had taken one look at him and proceeded to bundle him onto their admittedly crappy couch with one of her own pillows and an afghan while she made him her dad’s vegetable soup. 

“You forgot the salt,” he had grumbled, but he ate the entire bowl in a matter of minutes before wriggling down on the couch and falling asleep with his head in her lap. After resisting for a couple moments, she had given in and started combing her fingers through his hair while he snored quietly, little puffs of breath warming her belly when he snuggled closer in his sleep.

Since that day, things between them have been different. 

Octavia’s spending more time than ever with Lincoln, and Raven’s busy in the lab working on a collaboration with a visiting engineer. So Clarke’s left mostly to her own devices, and so is Bellamy, and somehow she finds herself spending most of her free time hanging out with him.

He still bugs the shit out of her, of course, criticizing her taste in books when she spends a rainy afternoon reading romance novels on his couch; in return she calls him a book snob and takes way too much joy in messing up the alphabetical organization of his bookshelves. Clarke takes to stealing his mug for a gulp when she gets sleepy studying, and he gripes and grumbles, but switches from dairy to soy milk when she complains about it hurting her stomach. 

She never imagined how easily she and Bellamy Blake could slip into a deep, effortless friendship like this. Of course, most friends probably don’t notice the way water trickles down their friend’s bare chest to disappear underneath his towel when he walks from the shower to his bedroom. Or the way that friend smiles so sweetly at her when he’s sleepy. Or the way his hair feels against her cheek when it gets too long, and she’s leaning against him as they watch television. Most friends probably don’t notice that stuff. But Clarke’s working on that, really. It’s not a big deal.

Because mostly, being friends with Bellamy is just really, really great.

Clarke’s sitting cross-legged in his kitchen one morning, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. She’d fallen asleep on Bellamy’s couch the night before during a Marvel movie marathon, and had woken up to morning light streaming through his ugly curtains. There had been a blanket over her body, a pillow under her head, and a post-it on her forehead reading  _I texted Octavia and Raven that you fell asleep here, narcoleptic._

She’s seconds away from falling asleep again right there at the dining table when a mug of coffee is plunked down in front of her. It’s one she hasn’t seen before—Bellamy’s partial to plain white mugs, and this one is bright blue with little crowns and the words “Keep Calm and Caffeinate.”  She blinks at it, then seizes it and takes several huge gulps.  

Only then does she beam at Bellamy, who’s collapsed in the seat next to her.

“Your loser friends are coming over in a bit,” he tells her, and slurps obnoxiously from his own mug. 

Clarke snorts. “They’re your loser friends, too.” 

“Uh, I’m pretty sure they’re not.”

She uncrosses her legs just so she can kick him under the table. 

“Miller was your friend first, and I know for a fact you had him and Monty and Jasper over for a Halo party just last week. Which, by the way, pissed Raven off because you didn’t invite her.”

“Okay, first of all we don’t call it a ‘Halo party,’ and second of all I didn’t invite her because she would have crushed every one of us. Miller still has war flashbacks from the Halo Fiasco at her birthday last year,” Bellamy says. 

“Uh huh,” she replies dryly. “And you say they’re not your friends?”

“Correct,” he says. “Maybe Miller. But all the others are your friends only.”

“You realize how pathetic it is to insist you only have, like, two friends?”

“I thought you went to college, princess. You need to brush up on your counting skills,” Bellamy says, nudging her ankle with his foot. 

She frowns at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Miller is only one person,” he replies. “Unless you’re counting Octavia or something.”

Clarke sets her mug down. “You don’t count me as one of your friends?”

Bellamy pauses. “Uh.” 

She knows she’s making a mountain out of a molehill, but she’s still tired after staying up well past midnight and then sleeping on Bellamy’s couch for only a handful of hours.

“Because if we’re not friends, then what the hell is all this?” Clarke gestures wildly. “Movie nights and hanging out and going to that stupid history museum together for the stupid Ancient Greece exhibit?”

“Hey, we went to that art gallery, too!” 

“That’s not the  _point_ , Bellamy,” she bites out. “Do you do all those things with someone you don’t even like enough to call your friend?”

“What? No, I—of course I like you, Clarke,” he says, looking bewildered. 

“Really? Because if you like someone, you’re friends, but apparently we’re not.”

“No, I’m sorry, Clarke. We’re friends. You’re my friend,” he says, voice low and soothing as if he’s trying to calm a wild animal. 

She glares at him and stands up from the table abruptly, shoving her chair back. “Well, too late. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.” She starts to turn away, but then stops and slides her mug across the table to him. “And I  _don’t_ like the mug you got me.” 

Bellamy catches her wrist in his hand and ruins her attempt to dramatically storm away. 

“Clarke, calm down. It was just a joke.”

“ _Don’t_ tell me what to do,” she replies, tugging ineffectually at his grasp. 

Bellamy sighs and grabs her around the waist, pulling her down into his lap where she stills, shocked. 

“Fine,” he says. “We’re not friends.” But he makes no move to let her go. 

“That’s not—not-friends don’t sit in their not-friends’ laps,” Clarke says. 

“Friends don’t usually sit in their friends’ laps either,” he points out. One of his arms is locked around her waist; his other hand is resting on her hip. His thumb starts to slowly brush back and forth over the fabric of her leggings, and tiny frissons of excitement run up her spine even as she does her best to scowl at him. 

“Then what are you doing?” she demands. She’s all-too-aware of her slept-in clothes, her mess of bedhead, her no-doubt awful coffee breath. 

“I don’t want to be your friend, either,” he tells her, and then he kisses her. 

Clarke doesn’t move. At all. She’s too stunned by the soft pressure of his mouth, the heat of his hand sliding up from her hip and under her shirt to rest on her back, the fact that it’s the first time he’s ever kissed her but she thinks she could happily spend the rest of her life being kissed by Bellamy Blake. 

He pulls back and looks at her nervously. “Come on, Clarke, you’ve got to give me something to go on here. Should I be fearing for my life, or...?” He trails off as a smile spreads across her face. 

“Or,” she tells him, and drags him back down to her mouth.

This time she moves her lips against his with purpose, sucking and licking at his lips until he opens his mouth and she can taste the coffee and  _him_ , and he clutches her tighter. 

Then the front door opens and slams shut, and Clarke and Bellamy separate, heads turning at the sound of their friends’ loud voices. Abruptly, the voices stop. 

All of their friends— _all of them **—**_ crowd into the doorway to the kitchen, looking at them. She waits, frozen, Bellamy just as still as she is, for the outburst of shock and disbelief sure to follow.

But all they get is a couple of shrugs and an, “Oops, sorry!” from Octavia. “We’ll just go get the movie set up.”

Their friends turn away, and Clarke’s jaw drops. “Wait, what?” she says. “That’s all you have to say?”

Monty looks puzzled. “What do you mean?” 

Clarke glances at Bellamy, who looks just as confused and somewhat indignant. “This,” he says, gesturing between him and Clarke. “Why is no one commenting on catching princess and me locking lips in the kitchen?”

Miller snorts as Jasper says, “Because…you’re  _together_?” with the air of the obvious. 

“No, we’re not!” Bellamy replies, and then stumbles over his words. “I mean, we are  _now,_ but we weren’t before!”

Clarke stares at him, lips slightly parted. “Wait, we are?”

Bellamy stops, looks her up and down where she’s still perched on his lap. “Well…aren’t we?”

“Um,” Clarke says. “Yes?”

“Good,” he says, a smile curving his lips. 

“Good,” she echoes. 

“You weren’t together before?” Raven asks. “Fuck, you two are idiots.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't blame Clarke for her dramatics; girl was operating on a bad night's sleep and a whole bunch of feelings. ;) Hope you enjoyed!


	26. Lead Me Out On The Moonlit Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From blakesdoitbetter on tumblr: "Bellarke slow dancing at Octavia's wedding. They've been hooking up for a year "casually" but they're both kidding themselves and with the dancing and the heart eyes and the emotional song/day in general they finally get it together."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not in the body of the story because it was awkward to try and slip in, but the song they're initially dancing to is The Fray's cover of "Kiss Me." The title of this chapter is from the same song! [Treat yo self and have a listen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwZzTXUWsm0)

Raven is nowhere to be found.

Clarke had figured that would be a risk when she dragged her best friend along to Octavia’s wedding as her plus one. But she didn’t expect Raven to disappear so  _soon_. Her college roommate’s reception has barely gotten started, and already that scruffy groomsman and Raven are missing.

Bellamy plops down in the seat next to her and Clarke hopes it’s not too obvious, the way every inch of her sparks to life at his proximity. 

So much for using Raven as a buffer so Clarke could get through Octavia’s wedding without wanting to drown herself in the open bar. 

“Come here often?” he asks. 

Clarke gives him a dirty look, and he has the decency to look embarrassed by the horrible line. His expression doesn’t make him any less attractive to her, unfortunately. The lush gardens hosting the wedding are lit up by twinkling string lights as twilight fades into night, and the soft glow throws the angles of his face and jaw into sharp relief. 

“Don’t you have, like, brother-of-the-bride duties to be doing?” she asks to distract herself. 

He looks over to where a radiant Octavia is being twirled around by a beaming Lincoln. “Nope. I paid all of the deposits on the wedding shit, I put on a fucking tux, I walked her down the aisle––I’m pretty much done.”

Clarke can’t help but soften a little when she hears the hitch in his voice, but before she can say anything, Bellamy catches her looking at him and clears his throat.

“You, uh––you look nice,” he tells her softly. 

“Oh,” Clarke replies. “Well, you know. Dress code.” Octavia does nothing by halves, and the wedding is black tie, so Clarke is in a strapless blue gown, her hair somewhat tamed for once. 

“No, Clarke––” Bellamy lets out a little growl. “You look fucking beautiful, okay?” 

She stares at him, warmth curling around her heart at his earnest words. And because Clarke is an idiot, and can’t manage to take a compliment from him when he’s looking at her like that, she says, “You know you don’t have to compliment me, right? You’ll get in my pants no matter what.”

Bellamy looks a little bit like he’s been punched in the gut, and doesn’t respond other than to avert his eyes and shrug. 

Clarke knows she should be satisfied. They’re friends, and the sex is good––really good. He knows just how to rile her up even more when she’s already pissed to give her one hell of an orgasm; if she’s sad, he knows just how playful to be to have her laughing as she climaxes. She loves it best when he buries his face in her neck, murmuring her name as he strokes slowly in and out of her, their fingers laced together. 

The problem is that she kind of loves  _him_ , too. 

And now she needs a drink or five.

“Damn it, Raven,” Clarke mutters quietly. 

Bellamy glances over at her. “What was that?”

Clarke pastes on a smile. “Nothing. Just, you know, people-watching. I think I might get a drink.”

He eyes her thoughtfully, then shakes his head and stands up.

“Excuse me?” Clarke replies. “Are you telling me I  _can’t_ get a drink?” 

“No, but I’ve seen you after you’ve had a couple drinks. I want to get a dance in before you start acting like gravity is fighting you,” he says, smirking, and holds out his hand. 

Clarke looks from it to his face and back. “Um.”

Dancing with Bellamy sounds like a  _terrible_  idea. 

“Come on, princess. Please?” 

_Fuck._

“Okay,” she says, and lets him help her up from her seat and lead her to the dance floor.

Once there, she’s not quite sure how it’s going to work. They’ve danced together before, sure, but always out at clubs and once at the Retro Night downtown. She’s never danced with Bellamy to anything like the slow song drifting through the air, lyrics so sweet she gets goosebumps. 

But Bellamy’s apparently got it all figured out, pressing his front against hers, sliding a gentle hand down to her waist while the other curls carefully around her fingers. He’s holding her like she’s fragile, and Clarke is not surprised to discover how much she likes it.

He starts them swaying, and Clarke’s mouth is dry. She has to work to be able to speak, but eventually she manages to say, “It was a really beautiful wedding, Bellamy.”  

He just nods, eyes locked on hers. Her heart is beating too fast for the slow pace of the music.

She wets her lips, wonders how long it would take her to count all his freckles, or if she even could.

“I––” 

“Clarke––”

They both pause. “You go ahead,” Clarke says, squeezing his hand.

Bellamy lets out a breath. “Okay. Clarke, I…it’s just––” He breaks off with a frustrated sound. “Shit.” 

She frowns as his eyes search hers. “Bellamy?”

“Fuck,” Bellamy mutters under his breath, and then he ducks down to press his mouth to hers. 

Clarke tenses, and she can tell he feels it when the fingers on her waist squeeze her tighter, and he kisses her harder.

He’s never kissed her like this––kissed her when they’re not having sex, when they’re in public. Ever. 

Clarke is terrified, and thrilled.

“Clarke,” he murmurs in between kisses. “Clarke.” 

She whimpers and yanks her hand out of his; he stumbles away from her in surprise, but she just uses both of her hands to pull him back to her and kiss the hell out of him.

It’s his turn to freeze, though to his credit he doesn’t take as long as she did to realize what was happening, and his fingers thread into her hair.

“You’re ruining my updo,” she says. He laughs into her mouth.

“Sorry,” he says, sounding absolutely unapologetic. 

She pulls his lower lip through her teeth in retaliation, and he lets out a broken groan.

“Hey, guys?” 

Bellamy jerks away from Clarke and looks over at his sister, who’s dancing nearby with Lincoln and watching them with a wildly amused smirk.

He looks a little dazed as he replies, “Yeah, O?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m super glad you guys are moving on from making out in secret to making out in public, but you might want to cool it a little before you give all the guests a show.” 

Clarke hides her heating face against his chest. She can feel the laughter vibrate through him as he wraps his arms around her back and starts to sway them back and forth again.

“Let us dance in peace, Octavia,” she hears him say. “Go smash cake in Lincoln’s face or something.”

“I’d say don’t tell me what to do, except that sounds like a great idea,” Octavia replies, and Clarke peeks around Bellamy to see her friend gleefully leading her new husband toward the dessert table. 

“Clarke?”

She looks up; Bellamy’s watching her, lips swollen and eyes bright, jaw moving in that nervous way of his.

“Yeah?”

“Will you be my date for the rest of my sister’s wedding?”

Clarke pauses, letting his question sink in, warming her all the way down to her toes. 

Bellamy Blake wants to date her. 

A smile spreads across her face. “Well, Raven seems to have deserted me for the groomsman, so I guess I have to say yes.”

Bellamy flushes. “Well, about that. I might have offered her a hundred bucks to ditch you early.”

He cringes when she smacks him on the arm. “Bellamy! Why would you do that?”

“I just––I don’t know, I thought you were coming with a date because Octavia told me you had a plus one. And when I saw it was just Raven, I figured…” Bellamy shrugs sheepishly. “I guess I figured it might be a good time to…uh, dance with you.”

“I’m not––” She looks away, then back at him. “I haven’t actually gone on a date with anyone in months.”

“Until now,” he reminds her, almost shyly. “Because you said you’d be my date.”

She can feel her blush returning, but she nods. “Yeah. Until now. Though to be honest, I’m feeling a little gypped. Is it a whole date if it only starts halfway through a wedding?” 

He shakes his head and holds her close, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t think so. We’ll have to go on another one soon, to make up the difference.”

(He’s on her doorstep with flowers the very next afternoon.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! <3


	27. Bartenders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From blakesdoitbetter on tumblr: "Bellarke, obvi, are locally famous bartenders who have a weird psychic connection and they do all these drink gimmicks like matching drinks to customers personalities and throwing things at each other/catching them without even looking up, etc. but Clarke is tiny and Bellamy is huge so one day after celebrating Clarke passing her bio final, she gets a lil schwasted and he gives her a piggyback ride home where she cuddles into him the whole time ;)"

Tonight is not their usual kind of night at Grounders. 

On a normal night, he and Clarke race to see who can pull a pint faster; they makes bets about what kind of drink a customer is going to order, and the loser does the mopping after they close; when things are slow, they juggle a likely dangerous number of bottles between them. 

But none of that’s happening tonight.

Tonight, Clarke is not the one tossing him bottles or spinning tins down her arms. Tonight, Clarke’s the one slamming empty shot glasses down on the bar and calling for another. 

“You’re not Thor,” he tells her, but fixes her another shot of whiskey anyway.

“Obviously,” she sneers at him. “Thor  _breaks_ his cup when he wants another.”

“If you break anything, I’m telling Kane and it’s coming out of your pay,” he warns her when he catches her eyeing the stack of empty shot glasses speculatively. 

“He can’t do that,” she says petulantly. “I’m not on shift. It would come out of  _your_ pay,” she adds, leaning over the bar to poke him. He has to drop the rag he’s using so he can catch her shoulders when she overbalances and nearly topples over onto his side of the bar.

“Oops,” she giggles, and pats his chest as he settles her back on her stool.

“You alright there?” he asks, fighting a smile as she blinks blearily at him.

“I’m  _so_ alright,” Clarke replies. “I’m  _peachy._ Biology is dumb and gross and not peachy, and it’s  _over.”_

“Congratulations,” he tells her for at least the fifth time that night. 

He  _is_ happy for her; over the course of the semester he’d gotten more and more worried as the circles under her eyes got darker, and her mouth looked more and more pinched whenever she tried to smile. 

She still looks tired––she only took her bio final that afternoon, after all––but now she also looks relaxed and happy and drunk off her ass.

“I wan’another,” she slurs, and Bellamy glances at the clock. There’s still fifteen minutes until closing, but Clarke’s the only person still there, so he might as well start shutting things down.

“I think it’s time to slow your roll,” he tells her, and starts cleaning up her empty glasses.

“Noooo,” she whines, but pillows her head on her arms to watch him. 

He ignores her in favor of balancing out the till, wiping down the counters and tables and taps, setting the clean glasses out to air dry. He does a quick mop job behind the bar and plans to do the rest of the place when he comes in to open tomorrow.

He works quickly, but Clarke’s eyes are drooping nonetheless when he finally shoves his wallet and phone into his pocket.

“Hey, Clarke. Time to go home.”

“’m tired,” she says, and snuggles into her arms.

He plants a hand on her back and rubs gently. “I know, but your bed isn’t that far away. You’ll feel better sleeping on a mattress than on the bar.”

She grumbles a little but pushes herself of the stool and to her feet.

“Whoa,” she says when she sways. Bellamy steadies her. Her eyes are glassy and she’s probably the farthest from sober he’s ever seen her.

“You can’t walk home like this,” he realizes. Not that he was going to let her walk home alone at three in the morning, but she can’t actually  _walk._

“Nope,” she says cheerfully. She holds out her arms. “Carry me!”

“Fuck. Hold on,” he tells her. He helps her wobble out the door, and props her up against the side of the building while he locks up and pockets the keys. 

“Okay, come here,” he says. She blinks at him and holds out her arms like a toddler wanting to be picked up.

Bellamy snorts. “Uh, I don’t think so. Not if I want to be able to lift my arms in the morning.” He turns around and crouches, offering his back; she makes a little noise of realization and drapes her body over him, linking her arms around his neck. He reaches back and grasps her thighs, and when he stands she squeals. 

“I’m so tall!” 

He can’t see her face, but he can feel her breath hit his jaw as she peeks over his shoulder. 

“No,  _I’m_  tall. You’re a short-legged mushroom.” 

“You’re a  _giant_ ,” she hisses. A moment later: “I like it.”

He laughs. “I aim to please.”

It’s not far to Clarke’s apartment, only about five blocks, and his is another three beyond that. He follows the route on autopilot, his body so conditioned by countless nights of walking Clarke home after her shift that he doesn’t have to pay any attention to the passing streets.

It may be the beginning of summer, but the air is cold this late at night. He tries not to focus on how he can feel the way it’s affecting her, what with the way her front is plastered to his back, only separated by the thin layers of their shirts.

“You’re so toasty,” she mumbles, breath hot against his ear. He has to tighten his grip on her thighs so he doesn’t drop her or something. 

“Toast, toast, toast,” she sings quietly. “Bellamy, Bellamy, hey. If you were toast, would you want, like, jam or nutella on you?” 

Bellamy lets out a helpless laugh. “I don’t know. What would  _you_  want?” 

“Mmm,” she sighs. “Lemon curd.” 

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Got a reason?”

“’Cause it’s like you,” she says. “Tart, you know? Kind of sour. But mostly sweet.” 

He gives in to the smile. It’s not as if she can see, anyway. “Why Clarke, is that your way of saying you want me all over you?”

Bellamy doesn’t expect her to say, “Probably.”

He thanks god he doesn’t trip and hurt them both, though it’s a near thing.

“Bellamy. Bellamy. Bellamy.” She chants his name until he shakes off his shock.

“What, Clarke?”

She gives him a full body hug, squeezing his hips with her thighs and his shoulders and chest with her arms. “You’re my favorite.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, princess,” he tells her, and squeezes her thighs gently. 

“No,” she says, dragging out the word. “You’re my  _favorite-_ favorite.”

His heart thumps painfully, and he has no idea what to say to that––what does that even _mean_?––but it doesn’t matter, because they’re already in front of her apartment building. 

“You got your keys, Clarke?”

She hums quietly and wriggles until he carefully sets her down, turning to make sure she stays steady now that her feet are back on the ground. 

Clarke digs into the pockets of her jeans––her really tight jeans, he notices, the ones that nearly made him swallow his tongue the first time she wore them to a shift. 

“Oh,” she says.

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No keys,” she tells him, blue eyes big and earnest. 

“Wait, seriously?” he asks. When she nods, he sighs. 

“You probably left them in the bar,” he says, and drags a hand over his face. “Fuck, okay. Come on.”

He lets her climb onto his back again, and he starts trudging along.

“The bar––” she yawns. “The bar’s the other way.”

“Yeah, no. I’m not walking all the way back to the bar just to get your keys tonight. You can stay at my place.”

“Cool,” she says, and rests her chin in the crook of his neck. 

She’s pretty quiet for the rest of the walk, and he has to jiggle her every now and then to make sure she doesn’t fall asleep on him. His apartment is two floors up with no elevator, and he doubts he could get them both up in one piece if she was dead weight. 

“Okay, time to get down,” he says, panting a little bit when they’ve made it to his front door. 

“Uh uh,” she says, and tightens her grip. 

“Clarke,” he warns. “I’m going to drop you if you don’t get down.”

She ignores him, and he lets go of her thighs. She just clamps them hard around his waist, clinging to him like a koala, and he sighs and unlocks the door. 

“You want to get down  _now_?” Bellamy asks after flipping the deadbolt. “You need to drink some water and go to sleep.”

He can feel her hair tickle his neck as she shakes her head. “I like it here.”

He’s lucky she’s as small as she is, because he’s able to go get her water and aspirin without much trouble. He turns the light on in his bedroom and sets the glass and pills on the nightstand. 

“Now?” he asks. 

“No,” she chirps. 

“Okay, but you brought this upon yourself,” he replies, and carefully flops down on his bed, squishing her between his body and the mattress.

Instead of urging him to get up or smacking him or something, she bursts into giggles and tightens her limbs even more. 

“Clarke––” he starts, and then cuts off with a strangled gasp when she presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss to his neck. “ _Shit_ , Clarke!”

He wants nothing more than to stay right fucking there and let her do whatever the fuck she wants to him, and that’s why he finally pries her arms and legs from around him and leaps up. 

“I––Clarke––you––” he tries. She snuggles into his pillow and watches him with a soft smile.

“What?” she asks. 

“You’re still drunk,” he says, taking in the bright pink of her cheeks and the glossy shine of her eyes as a sour feeling makes itself known in his gut. 

“So?”

“ _So_ , you––I––you shouldn’t be doing things. Like that,” he finishes lamely. 

“Why?” she asks. “You’re my favorite.”

He groans. “Clarke––”

“ _Bellamy_ ,” she mimics. “You’re my  _favorite._ Ever.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. “Oh.”

“Even though you’re a huge nerd,” she adds thoughtfully. “And a  _giant._ ”

He swallows. “Well. You’re my favorite, too. Even though you’re a pixie-sized know-it-all.”

“Good,” she says in satisfaction. “I’m sleepy. Come to bed.” 

“Uh.” His brain short-circuits a little at the thought of curling up around Clarke in his bed, holding her all night, waking up with her in the morning. 

But. 

“I should probably sleep on the couch,” he says. “I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and not remember how you ended up in my bed with me.”

“You’re dumb,” she yawns. “I’d like it even if I didn’t remember.”

“Still,” he says. “I’d rather finish this conversation when you’re sober and will for sure remember everything.”

“Mm, fine,” she breathes, and her eyes drift closed. 

He hesitates, then stoops down to kiss her forehead. “Sweet dreams, Clarke,” he says softly.

She mumbles a little, something that almost sounds like his name, and then she’s out. 

* * *

He gets up early the next day while Clarke is still asleep to run to the market; when she stumbles out of his bedroom, there’s a plate of toast and a brand new jar of lemon curd waiting for her on the table. Bellamy waits, nearly sick to his stomach with nerves, to see if she gets it––if she remembers.

She looks from him to the table and back, and rolls her eyes as a smile takes over her face.

“I  _told_ you. A little sour, but mostly sweet.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts! <3


	28. Forest Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellarke and surprise forest kisses"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a TEENY TINY VERY FLUFFY drabble.

Even though it would do wonders for Bellamy’s peace of mind if she stayed in camp, Clarke insists on still going out into the forest to find her own herbs for the medbay. Which is why he’s trailing behind her, keeping an eye out for murderous animals as she scours the ground. Well, he’s multitasking. He can keep an eye out for murderous animals and watch the cute little waddle of Clarke’s stride. 

(She would kill him if she knew he thinks it’s cute.)

“Why can’t you tell the patrols to look for it, again?” Bellamy asks, kicking a pinecone out of his path.

“Because I’ve already tried that, and they always end up bringing me back crabgrass and clover. Well, the clover is useful,” she says. “But their botany skills are pathetic.”

“You realize you can’t keep going out to look for them yourself forever,” he points out. 

She stops and turns to glare at him. “I don’t take orders from you, Bellamy Blake,” she says, poking him in the chest with each word. He grabs her hand and threads his fingers through hers before her pointy little finger can draw blood or something. 

“Hey!” she starts, but is surprised into silence by his lips on hers. He keeps it slow and soft, coaxing her into relaxing. When he wraps his arms around her, he can feel the tension leaking out of her muscles, and he starts to rub firm circles on her lower back, right where he knows she’s always aching these days.

Clarke breaks the kiss, presses her forehead to his collar and leans into him as she groans. “Feels good,” she sighs.

He drops a kiss on her hair, and can feel a little nudge where her rounded belly is pressed against his. The forest is calm and quiet, the air sweet with the scent of spring, the light filtering through the thick overgrowth to make it seem like twilight already. And Bellamy Blake is completely content, holding Clarke Griffin and their unborn child in his arms.

“I’m not trying to boss you around,” he murmurs, and she slumps a little more against him.

“I know,” she says. “I just…need to do these things while I’m still free to do them whenever I want.” 

“Hey,” he says. “You’re not going to be trapped in camp or something once the kid comes, alright? If you really need to get out, I can stay home and Miller or somebody can go looking for petunias or whatever with you.”

“I know that,” she says, fond exasperation in her voice as she looks up at him. “It’s just…I’m not sure I’ll  _want_ to leave you, both of you, behind. But gorillas and panthers and babies don’t really mix.”

Bellamy snorts. “Yeah, not the best combination.”

Clarke hums in agreement and kisses his chin. He can’t help but grin, knowing she aimed for the little cleft that she’s admitted she hopes their child inherits. 

“Well, if you don’t want to leave, you don’t have to. If you decide you do want to go out on little foraging trips, we’ll make that work too. And if you don’t want  _me_  to leave, I won’t,” he adds seriously. “You’re not doing this, any of this, alone, Clarke.”

She surprises him by popping onto her toes and kissing him softly. “We’re in this together, is what you mean?” she asks, a smile curling her lips.

He brings his hand to her face, sweeps a thumb carefully over her cheekbone. Her eyes flutter closed and he leans forward to press a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah, Clarke. Together.”


	29. New Neighbors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From feminist14er on tumblr: "Long distance relationship au, please? **Or brand new neighbors au.** Either would be lovely!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk I love dogs

Bellamy meets his new neighbor bright and early the morning after she’s moved in. He’s got Scylla on her leash when he notices the blonde stepping out of her own apartment across the landing, dressed in that bright, tight stretchy stuff women seem to like to wear to work out. 

Then he sees that she’s got a black lab of her own on a leash, and he only has a second to feel the dread.

“Shit,” he grunts as Scylla sees the other dog and goes ballistic, pulling and whining, nails scrabbling against the concrete floor as she tries to meet the new neighbors. “Scylla, no!”

The blonde looks up in alarm as she finishes locking her door. “Atlas, heel,” she says, and  _her_ dog plops down into a sitting position at her left side, his tongue lolling out as he watches Bellamy’s idiot of a dog. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells the woman, trying and failing to calm Scylla. “She doesn’t bite or jump, I swear. She’s just  _too_ friendly.”

She eyes him skeptically. “How is she with other dogs?”

“Good, once the frenzy of the meet and greet is over with,” he replies, and can’t help but notice how pretty she is in the light of the dawn, her hair shining a pale gold like winter sun. “Yours?”

She raises an eyebrow and glances down at her dog, who still hasn’t moved from his heeled position. 

“He can handle it,” she says, an amused smile curving her lips, and Bellamy’s momentarily distracted by the dark little freckle above her mouth. 

“Right,” he says, a second too late. “Well, is it okay to introduce them? It’s pretty much the only way to calm her down.” 

“Sure,” she says. “Atlas, friend.” 

Bellamy lets go of Scylla’s leash and she bounds over to Atlas, who immediately stands and moves forward at the blonde’s command. 

The second Atlas’s nose sniffs near Scylla’s muzzle, she quiets, though her limbs still quiver in delight. 

Bellamy edges around the two animals until he’s within reach of his new neighbor. “Hi. I’m Bellamy,” he says. “That terror is Scylla.”

She shakes his hand firmly, then crosses her arms and watches the dogs. “Clarke. That’s Atlas.”

She doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else until she suddenly turns to him. “Wait. Like,  _Scylla_ Scylla? Greek ‘rock and a hard place’ Scylla?”

He nods, pleased she recognizes it. His sister always makes fun of him for naming his dog after a mythical sea monster. “You know Scylla and Charybdis?”

Clarke stares at him. “My dog’s name is Atlas.”

“Oh,” he says. “Right. Yeah. Also Greek. The whole holding up the sky thing.” 

He’s stumbling over his words like a complete moron, but at the very least it has the effect of coaxing a laugh out of her.

“Do you take her out every morning?” Clarke asks.

“We run, yeah. And most evenings, we’ll take a walk if it’s nice,” he says. “She needs the exercise or she acts like a three-year-old given straight sugar.”

She gives him a funny look, and he feels the need to clarify. “I’ve got a niece. She got into the pantry. It was bad.”

She laughs again, and Bellamy figures he’s probably pretty pathetic, feeling so pleased just because he can get a pretty girl to laugh at him.

“Atlas is the same. Guess it’s a lab thing,” Clarke replies. “Listen, can you give me any pointers about where to go? I just moved to town and I’m not even sure where a grocery store is, let alone where to take him.“

As she speaks, she taps her thigh and Atlas heels again. A calmer, happy Scylla slinks over and leans lazily against Bellamy’s legs.

“There’s a dog park,” Bellamy says, winding Scylla's leash around his hand. “On Weatherton and 47th. I don’t usually take Scylla there, though.”

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of dog parks,” Clarke replies with a grimace. “They’re like massive cages for humans and their dogs.”

“I like the river trail,” he says. “It’s not far, but the way to find it is a little tricky.”

“That sounds nice.” Clarke scratches behind Atlas’s ears, the dog’s eyes drooping in pleasure as her own remain fixed on Bellamy’s.

“I could show you how to get there. You know, if you want,” he offers, willing his voice not to crack like a thirteen-year-old boy’s. It doesn’t, and he counts it as a victory, because if thirteen-year-old him had been faced with a woman like Clarke, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Clarke considers him, then nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.” As they finally start to head down to the sidewalk, she tells him, “I do carry pepper spray, just so you know. And I know, like, three and a half jiu-jitsu movies, so if you try to murder me and toss my body in the river I will  _totally_ kick your ass.” 

"Noted."

(She doesn’t kick his ass, though she sets a hell of a pace on their run. And later, after dinner, they meet up again for the dogs’ evening walk.

And the next night.

And the next.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that after a couple years of twice-daily runs, Atlas and Scylla wholeheartedly welcome the additions of Ella Griffin-Blake and the new puppy, Orpheus.


	30. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke, why are you wearing Bellamy's shirt?"

“Clarke, why are you wearing Bellamy’s shirt?” 

Clarke pauses in the middle of organizing the books she’s using as sources for her art history term paper. For one panicked moment she wonders if she really managed to screw up that bad, but when she risks a glance at herself she sees the familiar concert t-shirt. 

“I’m not?” she replies slowly.

Octavia leans a hip against the kitchen table and raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

Clarke rolls her eyes and opens her laptop. “Your brother’s not the only person in the world to see Imagine Dragons in concert.”

“Why are you trying to convince me you’re not wearing my brother’s shirt?”

“Because I’m not!” she exclaims. She’s wearing her  _own_ shirt, thank you very much. She’d gotten it at the same concert Bellamy had gotten his when they’d gone with their group of friends last year, and she’d purposefully gotten it several sizes too big so she could use it as a comfy sleep shirt. 

Octavia opens her mouth to argue again and Clarke narrows her eyes. “Drop it. You may be done with finals, but I have a ten page paper to write and I don’t have time for this.”

“This isn’t over,” Octavia warns, unimpressed, and leaves Clarke alone in the kitchen.

* * *

Clarke forgets about her roommate’s accusation until much later that day. She’s nearly done with her paper, and decides to leave the conclusion for tomorrow. All of her other finals and papers are done, and the art history paper isn’t due for three days anyway.

She'd heard Bellamy come in at some point around lunchtime, and she pauses just before she enters the living room to make sure she's not going to give everything away the second she lays eyes on him.

They've made it this long without Octavia noticing anything.

“Hey Bellamy,” she says when she sees Octavia’s brother sprawled out on their couch, looking painfully bored while Octavia watches television. “Her turn to pick, your turn to suffer?”

He nods, his lips quirking up in a grin. “Save me.”

Octavia tosses a dirty look at them both. “Hey, last time you picked a fucking  _documentary._  I wasted hours of my life learning about papyrus _._ You can handle a couple episodes of  _Long Island Medium._ ”

She turns back to the screen, but Bellamy keeps looking at Clarke. His gaze drifting down her legs makes her skin feel hot all over. Even though it’s the middle of the afternoon and she’s still in her pajamas, and even though her bedhead is probably greasy, and even though her shirt covers all the essentials, he’s looking at her like he wants to eat her alive.

“Like Clarke’s shirt, Bell?” Octavia says, not taking her eyes off the screen. 

Bellamy jerks like he’s been stung by a bee, and Clarke tries not to do the same. Really, they’re usually much better about being subtle around Octavia. 

“Yeah,” he says warily, “since I have the same one.”

Octavia hums noncommittally, and Clarke shrugs when Bellamy looks at her in confusion.

“Have fun communicating with dead people,” Clarke says, and leaves them to their sibling ritual. 

Finals week means that chores have been neglected and crap has started to pile up in Clarke’s bedroom, so she takes a few minutes to gather up all of her dirty clothes and start running loads through the washer. While the basin fills, she sorts lights and darks, absentmindedly making a list of other chores she really needs to do. 

She almost doesn’t notice, so consumed with thoughts of cleaning the bathtub and vacuuming her carpet, but at the last second she snatches the grey fabric back out of the washer. It’s dripping wet from being submerged in the water, but it’s very obviously an Imagine Dragons tour shirt. 

Clarke slowly turns it over in her hands, pulling it right-side out again so she can look at it. Right in the middle of the list of cities on the back is a faint brown outline. She remembers singeing the shirt with the tip of the iron, leaving a little v-shaped mark. 

“Why were you ironing a t-shirt?” she remembers Octavia asking when she had complained about messing up her shirt.

“Don’t question my life choices,” Clarke had retorted, and then had forgotten all about it.

Putting it back in the washer, she yells that she’s going to shower. The second she’s in the bathroom, she twists and stares at her back in the mirror.

“Fuck,” she says. 

She’s wearing Bellamy’s shirt. 

The back of the shirt is pristine. The absence of the little brown mark is something Clarke could easily miss, and something Octavia never would. 

She nearly jumps out of her skin when the bathroom door opens and Bellamy slips in, locking the door behind him. 

“What are you doing?” she hisses at him. “Octavia––”

He cuts her off, hands clutching fiercely at her hips as his mouth takes over hers. “She just left. Bailed on me for Lincoln,” he explains in between kisses. “Told me to lock up after myself.”

“And your first thought was to join me in the shower?”

“Yup,” he replies unapologetically. 

She pinches the soft skin above his hip when he moves to busy himself with her throat, and he yelps.

“Hey!” he says indignantly. “What was that for?”

She huffs and turns around. “This!”

“…Sorry you’re still clothed?” he says uncertainly.

She rolls her eyes and strips off the shirt, ignoring the faint noise Bellamy makes at the sight of her bare breasts. 

“See?” Clarke says, showing him the spot. “ _Mine_ has a burn mark.” 

It takes him a few seconds to drag his attention down to the shirt she’s holding out, and a few seconds longer for his brain to restart and realize what he’s looking at.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So when Octavia asked me––”

“Yup,” Clarke says. “You must have left it behind last weekend.” Octavia and Lincoln had gone to visit his parents for the long weekend, and Bellamy and Clarke had taken the opportunity to finally sleep in a bed together. After over three months of sneaking in kisses and quickies whenever they were certain Octavia wouldn’t find out, it was a relief to just  _be_ together. 

But they’d slept through the alarm, and it had been a flurry of limbs and clothes as they’d dressed and Bellamy had tried grab his stuff before Octavia came home and caught them redhanded.

And Clarke must have grabbed his shirt last night without realizing.

“Do you think she guessed  _how_ you’re wearing my shirt?” he asks her. 

Clarke shrugs and drops the shirt along with her panties. As Bellamy inhales sharply and then starts to tug his own clothes off, she says, “I don’t know. Maybe? It’s Octavia.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he declares hastily, and hauls her, giggling, into the shower. 

* * *

Squeaky clean with wet hair and pleasantly tired, sated bodies, Clarke leads the way down the hall, contemplating whether or not she wants to try and convince Bellamy to watch  _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ withher. She’s just opened her mouth to ask when he pulls her back against his chest, tucking his chin into the curve of her neck and nibbling. 

Clarke smiles and squeezes the arms banded around her waist. “Bellamy––” 

She freezes and goes silent when she looks into the living room, and Bellamy lifts his mouth a little. “What––Clarke?”

Clarke just points, and Bellamy makes a strangled-sounding noise when he, too, spots Octavia watching them from the couch, arms crossed, eyebrow arched, earbuds jammed firmly into her ears.

“We got to the bridge,” Clarke mutters, then sighs. She reaches back for Bellamy’s hand and together they shuffle toward their doom. 

“I fucking knew it. You think you’re so sneaky!” Octavia exclaims, a couple decibels too loud, when they sit down. Bellamy reaches across Clarke to yank the earbuds out of his sister’s ears, and Clarke can hear the music blaring out of the tiny speakers.

“You should speak louder. I don’t think the people in Europe can hear you,” he tells her. 

She sneers at him. “I didn’t want to accidentally hear any of your sex noises,” she says. “I love you and Clarke and all, but that’s disgusting.”

“It would have been your own damn fault,” Bellamy grumbles, though he looks a bit revolted at the thought. “You were supposed to be gone until tomorrow.”

“Why  _are_ you here?” Clarke asks.  

The look Octavia directs at them reminds her of the way her mother looked when Clarke was eight and the stray kitten she’d brought home without permission ended up using her mother’s basket of clean laundry as a litter box. Irritated, more than a little long-suffering, but still a little bit fond.

“You two losers wouldn’t tell me!” Underneath the irritation and the fondness is the faintest note of hurt, and that’s what has Clarke shifting guiltily. “I had to go on a freaking stakeout just to prove my brother and my best friend are together!”

Bellamy groans. “We were  _going_  to tell you, O.”

His sister watches him, eyebrow still raised. “Uh huh.”

“Really,” Clarke adds. “We just decided to do it after finals were over. We didn't want to freak you out.”

Octavia snorts. “That’s a crappy excuse and you know it.”

“ _If anybody tries to distract me from studying for this stupid chemistry exam, I’m going to set them on fire_ ,” Clarke recites from memory. It had only been the third week of the semester and Octavia had already been on edge, snapping at everyone as the stress of her most hated class took its toll.

“And then you threw your textbook so hard at the wall you left a hole,” Bellamy reminds her. “I had to spend an hour fixing it.”

“And then I had to spend three hours on a painting to hang over the spot he ‘fixed,’” Clarke says. “And he got offended and wanted to know why I thought his repair job wasn’t good enough––”

“Even thought it  _was_ ,” he interrupts, “and  _Clarke_ wouldn’t stop talking about proper spackling technique, and then––” 

He stops abruptly, and Clarke bites her lip to keep in her smile at the thought of what happened next. His hot mouth on hers as he had backed her against the wall, the way his lips had moved so carefully, belying the irritated words he had just uttered.

“Seriously?” Octavia says flatly. Clarke thinks she’s about to yell at them for hiding their relationship for as long as they have, but instead the other girl says, “ _That’s_ how you made your move, Bell?”

“Well––”

“And you!” She points at Clarke. “That’s just embarrassing. You’re going to have to tell your children that their parents got together because their aunt has no impulse control when she’s hopped up on Red Bull and their mom knows too much about home repair. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Clarke flushes, but shrugs. “Well, okay, that’s probably a little premature, but if that’s what I have to say, so be it.”

“And you, Bell? You’re totally cool telling your spawn that you got with their mom because you wanted to shut her up?”

“Sure,” he says absently, and Clarke glances at Bellamy only to see him watching her with the biggest, stupidest grin on his face.  

“Oh my  _god_ ,” Octavia says, “I can’t even be mad when you guys are this pathetic about each other. I’m leaving for real.”

She launches herself off the couch and hesitates before throwing her arms around the both of them in a hug. 

“I love you and you’re both idiots,” she says, and then grabs her bag from by the front door.

“You  _are_ pretty pathetic about me,” Clarke tells him when the door closes behind Octavia and they’re left looking at each other.

“Shut up,” he says immediately. “You just talked about our future children.” 

“ _Hypothetical_ future children,” she stresses, and when he pushes her down onto the couch and kisses her, they’re both smiling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, but does that REALLY count as babies? I think I'm safe. ;) Thanks for reading! <3


	31. Boyfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke punches a dude in the face. "GET AWAY FROM MY BOYFRIEND." (They are not dating.)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for Mia aka [lordmxrphy](http://www.lordmxrphy.tumblr.com) because our cookie connection is REAL. Also, it got kind of long because I have no self control.

In retrospect, it was probably abad idea to go alone to Mount Weather with the sole purpose of drinking until he forgot his baby sister was hooking up with a guy nearly a decade older than her. 

“Only  _seven_  years,” Octavia had insisted, annoyed, when she overheard him ranting to Clarke on the phone earlier that evening. “And Clarke knows him!” Pitching her voice to be heard over the phone, she added, “Tell Bellamy that Lincoln’s nice, Clarke!”

“Lincoln’s nice,” his best friend had repeated dutifully. 

“You fucking  _know_ this guy?” Bellamy had replied. It felt like a betrayal. Clarke  _knew_ how long it had been just Bellamy and Octavia, and how much Bellamy worried about his sister now that she was living on her own. It was pretty much all he ever thought about anymore, other than the fact that his best friend was beautiful and smart and funny and he was maybe more than a little bit in love with her.

“We met in a watercolor class last year,” Clarke had said, her voice gentle. “Bellamy, don’t worry about him. He likes to paint flowers. He’s nice.”

“ _I_ like to fucking bake  _cookies,_ Clarke, but that doesn’t mean I’m fucking  _nice_ ,” he had snarled, hung up, and slammed his way out of Octavia’s apartment.

“I’m not  _nice_ ,” he mutters now, glaring at his fourth (fifth?  _fuck_ ) beer bottle. “I’m a fucking asshole.”

He’s not quite sure if he means he’s an asshole in general, or he’s an asshole because he yelled at Clarke and hung up on her. 

“Fucking  _asshole_ ,” he repeats loudly, slamming his fist down hard enough that a couple empty bottles rattle against one another.

“What did you call me?”

He glances over, sees some guy in a polo shirt with thick douchey hair looking at him. If Clarke were here, she’d probably call him a douchebro.

(Okay, he wishes she were here. Just a little.

Okay, a lot. After a decade of friendship, he pretty much always wishes she were here.)

“Fuck off,” he says. “Wasn’t talking to you.” 

“No, I want you to repeat it,” the douchebro says, sliding off his stool and approaching Bellamy. “Say it to my face.” A couple of his friends drag themselves to their feet and stand behind him. The looks on their faces has Bellamy snorting; they look like long-suffering soldiers being forced into a reluctant game of follow-the-leader.

“Are you laughing at me?” the douchebro says, voice very quiet. 

Bellamy shrugs, takes a swig of his beer. “I don’t give enough of a shit about you to bother laughing,” he says.

When a hand grabs his collar, yanking him out of his seat, Bellamy’s arm jerks and the bottle hits his teeth hard.

“Fuck,” he swears, slamming the bottle down and scowling at the douchebro. “Listen, asswipe, I told you I wasn’t fucking talking about you.”

“Yeah?” is all the douchebro says before he pulls back and punches Bellamy right in the face. 

His head moves back a little with the hit, and a sting registers where the douchebro’s bulky class ring sliced along his cheekbone, but that’s about it.

“What  _was_ that?” he says. Honestly, at this point he should probably be pissed that he just got punched in the face, but the guy might as well have thrown a handful of paper at him. It hurts that little. 

The douchebro’s face purples.

“Hey, man,” one of the his friends says, pulling at the hand still grasping Bellamy’s shirt. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

The douchebro shrugs him off, glares at Bellamy. Bellamy can feel the blood trickling down his cheek.

“I’m not  _done_ ,” he snarls to his friends, and Bellamy groans, but before he can say anything or the guy can follow through with another hit, a furious voice cuts through the air.

“Get away from my boyfriend!”

It’s a goddamn dream come true. Bellamy twists awkwardly in the douchebro’s grip to see Clarke bearing down on them, looking like some fucking angel of vengeance or some shit.

Holy  _shit._

The douchebro gapes at her, no doubt taking in all the fury packed in such a tiny package (Bellamy has the irrational desire to punch him in the gut; he doesn’t deserve to consider  _anything_ about Clarke), but then narrows his eyes.

“This doesn’t concern you, blondie,” the douchebro says, and then Clarke hauls back and slams her fist into his nose.

He lets go of Bellamy immediately to bring both hands up to his face, tears leaking between clenched eyelids as he swears.

“The fuck!” he shouts, though the words are muffled through his hands. “You fucking bitch, what the hell?”

“Hey!” Bellamy starts, suddenly furious, but Clarke cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

“Don’t,” is all she says as she turns her back on the group of guys, all huddling in a concerned group around the douchebro. Clarke pulls him by the back of the neck until he leans down, and for one wild second he thinks she’s going to kiss him. Which, he thinks, he really wouldn’t be opposed to—

But when he’s leaning down far enough for her satisfaction, she just grabs his chin and turns his face so she can examine the cut on his cheek.

Clarke hums. “Shouldn’t need stitches.”

Then she smacks him on the shoulder. “What the fuck, Bellamy?”

He opens his mouth to respond—how, he doesn’t know, given that she looks kind of glorious when she’s got that pissed look on her face, and his brain is short-circuiting, and she’s still got one hand on the back of his neck—when douchebro shoves his way in between them, glaring down at Clarke.

“My father is on the city council,” he says thickly, blood dribbling through his fingers. “I’ll have you arrested for assault.”

“I know who the fuck you are, idiot,” Clarke snaps. “I’m Abby Griffin’s daughter.” 

The douchebro’s eyes widen comically at the name of the city’s mayor. “Clarke Griffin! I didn’t realize you—”

“Go fuck yourself, Cage,” Clarke says cheerily, and turns to Bellamy.

Cage and his friends flee the building, and Clarke snags a napkin off the bar to press mercilessly against the cut on his face.

“How drunk are you?” she asks. 

He hums, enjoying her touch even as it stings. “Not as much as I was.”

“Good,” she says, and then Bellamy nearly chokes when she shoves her hand into his back pocket. 

“Holy  _shit—_ ” Bellamy cuts himself off before he embarrasses himself anymore as Clarke pulls out his wallet with a raised eyebrow. 

“You could’ve—” He swallows. “You could’ve asked, princess. Even kindergarteners know how to use their words.”

“Like you used your words to have a calm, civil discussion with Octavia about her very nice, very sweet, very serious boyfriend?” she replies, and slides his debit card over to the bartender. 

Clarke finishes settling his bill as he sputters, then she tucks his wallet back into his pocket (again, holy  _shit_ ) andpoints to the door. “Out.”

“How’d you find me?” he asks to cover up the way her brusque touch is making him react. He’s a little curious, but mostly unsurprised. Clarke has a long history of being able to do pretty much anything.

“Logged into your account for the find-your-phone app,” she says.

That seems pretty reasonable, until Bellamy remembers that his password is Clarke’s name and birthday, and he’s pretty damn sure he’s never told her that.

“Oh.”

She points at the door again. “ _Out._ ”

Octavia lives close enough to downtown that Bellamy left his car at her complex when he stormed over to Mount Weather, so when Clarke starts stalking down the sidewalk Bellamy’s not sure what she wants him to do.

“You can sleep it off at my place,” she says. “Then you can go apologize to your sister about being a dick. And you know what? You owe me, like, a million cookies for dealing with you tonight.” Since she was fifteen, Clarke’s regularly demanded cookies as payment for real and made-up infractions on his part. Bellamy tends to just go with it, because Clarke’ll usually come over to ‘help’ and she inevitably gets covered in flour and sparkling sugar, and she’s pretty much the cutest thing he’s ever seen. 

“You can’t make me do anything,” he grumbles instead, and hurries to catch up to her. For being so short, she sure moves fast. 

The cool evening air quickly clears away the remaining fuzziness of his buzz, and as he trudges next to Clarke he thinks he should probably just call a taxi and sleep in his own bed.

Or he could just follow Clarke home, sleep on her stupid, uncomfortable, Ikea couch that she made him put together, and then see her in the morning, all rumpled and grumpy and beautiful. And he could make sure to make the coffee the way she likes it, stirring in the amount of sugar she likes but doesn’t let herself have when she makes it herself, and hand it to her with the kind of kiss on the cheek he can get away with giving his best friend.

Bellamy keeps walking to her apartment. He’s a pathetic asshole, but he’ll take what he can get.

To keep himself occupied, he replays the image of Clarke storming up to Cage in the bar over and over. Something is funny about it though, and he can’t put his finger on it until he suddenly realizes—

“Did you call me your boyfriend?”

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and doesn’t respond.

“Before you punched douchebro. You called me your boyfriend,” he says, way too delighted at the idea of Clarke pretending even for a second that he was her boyfriend, and pokes her in the shoulder. 

He expects her to scoff, or roll her eyes, or say something snarky because that’s what always happens when they get to moments like this, usually when Bellamy does something dumb like stare at his best friend’s mouth for, like, five whole minutes imagining if her cherry chapstick makes her taste as good as it smells.  

But she doesn’t say anything, just wraps her arms around herself and walks faster, refusing to look at him again or respond. And Bellamy starts getting a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it reminds him how he felt when Clarke convinced him to go on the Spin-Out at the county fair when he was nineteen and she was seventeen and she had found out he’d never gone on an upside down ride (“Gravity works the way it does for a  _reason_ , Clarke!”). Everything was upside down and he was kind of scared but at the same time Clarke was right there and it was all kind of beautiful.

Yeah, it feels something like that, looking at the tense way she’s holding her shoulders, the way her hands are tucked against her sides like she’s holding herself back from something.

So of course he fucks it up, asking her as she’s unlocking her apartment door, “Why are you being weird?”

She stiffens. “I’m not.”

“You called me your boyfriend, and now you’re being weird,” he insists, making sure to flip the deadbolt and fasten the chain before following her into the kitchen. 

“Would you just leave it alone?” she demands. She’s glaring at the sink and gripping the edge of the counter like it’s the only thing keeping her standing. “It was a stupid slip of the tongue.” 

“It’s a pretty specific slip of the tongue,” he prods, and Clarke lets out a frustrated sound as she whirls to face him. 

“What the hell do you want me to say, Bellamy? That, yes, I called you my boyfriend? That I’m sorry? That you’re not my boyfriend, and I wish you were, because you’re a fucking idiot but for some  _stupid_ reason, I’m fucking in love with you?”

His mouth is dry, and he wonders if maybe he never left the bar, just kept drinking until he hallucinated Clarke arriving and punching and taking him home to tell him she loves him. Honestly, it seems like the kind of thing his mind would come up with. 

“Um,” he says. 

A tear drips off Clarke’s chin, and she brushes it roughly away with her knuckles. 

“Fuck you, Bellamy,” she says tiredly, turning away. “You know where the blankets and stuff are. I’m going to bed.”

Bellamy’s heart thumps so hard he thinks he might be having a heart attack, and he scrambles to reach her before she escapes into her bedroom. He catches her in the hallway and grabs her shoulders. 

“Clarke, wait!” 

She wriggles, trying to get out of his hold, and glares at him when she fails. 

“I’m tired, and you’re drunk, and if you don’t let go of me in three seconds I’m going to punch you in the nads.”

“I told you, I’m not drunk anymore,” he says, and when Clarke starts to snarl at him, he covers her mouth with his. 

She squeaks a little, which sucks because Bellamy didn’t think he could find her any more adorable, but as usual Clarke delights in proving him wrong. 

Her body starts trembling under his fingertips as he kisses her. Bellamy can’t remember the first time he imagined kissing her like this, only that it feels like he’s always wanted to but it was never the right time, and now that he’s  _actually_  kissing her, he doesn’t want to fuck it up. So he does his best to keep it slow, coaxing, sweet, fitting her lower lip between his and sucking gently until she whimpers and shoves him so hard his back slams against the opposite wall. 

“Clarke—?” he whispers, feeling a little like she  _did_ just punch him in the nads because he can’t quite breathe and the look on her face is killing him. 

But then she launches herself across the hall, molds her body to his, and kisses him with all the ferocity he’d been carefully holding back. 

She tastes sweet and a little bit spicy, like the cinnamon gum she loves so much. Bellamy hates the gum, but he doesn’t think he’s ever tasted anything as good as Clarke.

Her hands snake under his shirt and he nearly chokes when her nails scratch over his belly. 

“Clarke, Clarke, wait,” he pants, and she stiffens, pulls away. He almost whines at the loss of her touch, and prays she doesn’t try and punch him as he reaches out for her. 

She lets him tug her back to him, cheeks flushed and watching him with wary, wild eyes. 

“I just—I just wanted to make sure,” Bellamy says. She’s tense in his arms, and he strokes a hand down her spine, hoping to soothe her. “That you know.”

“Know what?” she grumbles, and the sound of her voice sends a bolt of lust straight through him, because she sounds hoarse and dazed and impatient, and it’s all because of him. 

“That—” Bellamy has to pause, clear his throat, because he sounds pretty wrecked, too, and it’s all because of Clarke. “That you know you’re my best friend.” Clarke grows even tenser. “And I want to be your boyfriend, too.” 

A second passes, and then her body melts into his. 

And she socks him the shoulder. “You’re such a dick!” she says, and deepens her voice in a terrible approximation of his. “ _Oh, I’m Bellamy Blake and I’m an overdramatic asshole, and I don’t know how to express feelings with_ words—”

“I’m also fucking in love with you, too,” he interrupts mildly, and Clarke’s eyes snap to his. 

“What?”

“That’s what you said, right?” He tries not to sound as nervous as he feels in the face of her shock, but he fails. “That you love me. The more-than-best-friends kind of love.”

She nods slowly, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, and Bellamy brings a hand to cradle her jaw. The skin under his fingers is soft and smooth, and he runs his thumb across her mouth to tap the little beauty mark above it. 

“Awesome,” he says, “because you’re kind of incredible and I’m definitely in more-than-best-friends love with you.”

“You’re a huge loser,” she tells him, smile spreading across her lips, and she kisses his thumb. 

He wonders if he should buy his sister a present or something. It’s kind of all her fault that this has turned into the best fucking night of his life. 

“You’re the one in love with a loser,” he points out. 

“True.” Clarke pauses. “Does that mean you’ll bake me cookies whenever I want?”

Bellamy snorts. “Uh, no, because knowing you, you’d wake me up at three in the morning to ask for snickerdoodles,” he replies. “But I’ll bake you cookies once a week.”

She considers it, then nods. “Deal.”

“Deal?” he echoes, amused. “I wasn’t aware that this was a negotiation.”

“Hey,” she points out, “I think that you getting access to all  _this_?” She gestures at her own body. “Is probably worth negotiation.”

He thinks about getting access to  _all_  of Clarke, and nearly gives himself whiplash as he nods fervently in agreement.

“I find those terms completely acceptable.”

* * *

He’s not as enthusiastic when Clarke adds breakfast with Octavia and Lincoln the next morning ( “ _Civil_ breakfast, Bellamy,  _civil_ ,” she stresses) to the terms of their agreement, but he still figures he’s getting the best deal of his life. 

(He’s right.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> Also, please note that I _am_ keeping in mind the request for some smuttier fics! Hopefully I'll be inspired soon! ;)


	32. Little Spoons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's not the typical fic prompt. Instead, it's a fic developed out of an OTP ask meme on tumblr, answering the following questions: 
> 
> Which one sexts like a straight white boy?  
> Which one cried during a fucking disney movie?  
> Who put a goddamned fork in the microwave?  
> Who does the silly hands-over-the-eyes “Guess who” thing?  
> Who puts their cold hands/feet on their partner?  
> Who had that embarrassing Reality TV marathon?  
> Who laughs more during sex?  
> WHO IS THE LITTLE SPOON?
> 
> Thanks to blakesdoitbetter for requesting it! ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you follow me on tumblr and already saw this there! I wanted to make it available for anyone who doesn't and might be interested. :)

**Which one sexts like a straight white boy? C L A R K E**

* * *

_Clarke [2:03AM]_ : hey  
_Clarke [2:03AM]_ : what are u doing  
_Clarke [2:04AM]_ : bellamy  
_Clarke [2:04AM]_ : bELLAMY  
 _Clarke [2:05AM]_ : i’m not wearing any underwear

 _Bellamy [7:17AM]_ : did you try to booty call me at two in the morning

 _Clarke [10:31AM]_ : um pay attention blake  
_Clarke [10:32AM]_ : i tried to booty sext u at two in the morning  
_Clarke [10:32AM]_ : if u weren’t such an old man it would have been super hot  
_Clarke [10:33AM]_ : what 26 year old goes to sleep at 9:30

 _Bellamy [11:56AM]_ : the kind who has to be at work across town by 7:45???  
_Bellamy [11:58AM]_ : we can’t all be self-employed and make our own hours

 _Clarke [11:59AM]_ : don’t try to tell me u don’t love it  
_Clarke [11:59AM]_ : ur a huge nerd  
_Clarke [12:00PM]_ : and ur teaching poor impressionable teenagers how to be baby nerds  
_Clarke [12:02PM]_ : ur like the nerd whisperer

 _Bellamy [12:02PM]_ : are you serious

 _Clarke [12:05PM]_ : super srs  
_Clarke [12:05PM]_ : it’s kinda hot actually  
_Clarke [12:06PM]_ : i could tell u what it does to me if u want  
_Clarke [12:07PM]_ : or i could show u ;) ;) ;)  
_Clarke [12:11PM]_ : [photo attached]

 _Bellamy [12:12PM]_ : fuck  
_Bellamy [12:12PM]_ : i’m coming over as soon as school’s out

* * *

**Which one cried during a fucking disney movie? B E L L A M Y**

* * *

“Why is this still in the packaging?” Clarke calls, and Bellamy grabs their popcorn and their drinks to carry into the living room. When he sees what she’s holding, he stifles a groan. 

“I don’t like it,” he says gruffly, and takes the DVD out of her hand to put back on the shelf. 

She gives him a strange look and pulls it right back out. “How can you not like  _Lilo and Stitch_?” she asks. “It’s got surfing and dancing and aliens. It’s pretty much the best movie ever.”

Bellamy shrugs and flops down on the couch.

“I saw it in theaters,” he says. “Octavia wanted to go.”

His little sister had been twelve, and he’d barely had enough money to pay rent on their shitty little apartment and keep the growing girl in clothes that fit, but he’d saved enough to be able to take her to the theater on Discount Tuesday for her birthday. She’d loved it, and it had him feeling sick to his stomach as he watched the stupid social worker try and take Lilo away from Nani.

Years later, when Octavia got her first job, it was the very first thing she’d bought––a copy of the movie just for him, she’d said. He’d hidden those tears from her, too.

“Come on,” Clarke says gently. “It’s a happy ending. I bet you’d like it if you watched it again now.”

He forces a smile. “Whatever you want.”

She’s right, though; it’s sweet and funny and he does like it, and even if he tears up, Clarke just squeezes his hand and doesn’t say a word.

* * *

**Who put a goddamned fork in the microwave? C L A R K E**

* * *

“I didn’t realize!” she protests when Bellamy growls at her about the state of his microwave. “I put my plate in the microwave and then went to the bathroom.”

“It’s toast,” Bellamy grumbles, examining the inside of the destroyed microwave. “Jesus, Clarke, this is going to be a pain in the ass to replace.” It’s one of those microwaves mounted above the stovetop and bolted to the wall––definitely  _not_ a project Bellamy’s looking forward to tackling.

“I’ll pay someone to fix it,” she says, frowning. “It was my fault.”

“No,” he says immediately, shaking his head. “It’s my apartment.” But he does sigh. The money that’ll have to go the microwave now was supposed to go toward his ring fund.

“Look,” Clarke says, and he looks at her when he hears the peculiarly nervous tone. “If you don’t want to replace the microwave, you could always just let the complex do it.”

“What?” 

“If you moved out,” she says. “They’d fix it before the next tenant moved in. They’d just take it out of your security deposit or whatever.”

Bellamy considers her, the way she’s nibbling on her lower lip, and her fingers are twisting the hem of her t-shirt. “That would require me moving out of this apartment,” he says slowly, and she nods.

“Right.”

“Where would I go?” he asks, and she offers a hesitant smile.

“Mine? It’s already got a working microwave and everything.”

* * *

**Who does the silly hands-over-the-eyes “Guess who” thing? B E L L A M Y**

* * *

When Bellamy moved in, Clarke didn’t expect it to all be perfect. It’s definitely not, but aside from the dirty socks that she finds under the bed and the way he makes it impossible to sleep under anything more than a sheet, it’s been pretty awesome. He gets up stupidly early for work, but he’s quiet and she’s a sound sleeper, and as far as bedtime goes they’ve come to a compromise: they might get in bed at nine thirty every night, but they’re definitely not falling asleep right away.  
****

Clarke’s in her studio, working on the same canvas she’s been stuck on for weeks, when something covers her eyes.

Her shriek mostly drowns out his “Guess who?”

Bellamy immediately drops his hands and starts laughing; when Clarke spins around, he gasps out apologies as his face turns red.

“Don’t do that!” she says. “What if I had stabbed you in the eye with my paintbrush or something?”

“I guess it would have been a lesson well learned,” he wheezes, and she sets down her paintbrush with a roll of her eyes.

“Did you want something?” she asks, cleaning off her paint-covered hands.

Finally in control of himself, Bellamy straightens and smiles at her. “Just you.”

* * *

**Who puts their cold hands/feet on their partner? C L A R K E**

* * *

He hisses at the icy digits touch his flesh, making him arch away.

“Put on some socks or something!” 

“But they’re so far away,” Clarke whines, and shoves her feet even deeper in the space between his back and the couch. 

“This is not comfortable,” he tells her, trying to settle back against the couch. 

“Neither are my feet,” she retorts. “Don’t you love me? My toes are going to fall off if they get any colder. Would you still love me if I didn’t have toes?”

“Yes,” he says plainly, “Now get your feet out from behind my back.”

She pouts, but draws her feet out. Before she can tuck them back under the throw blanket that’s clearly defective if the temperature of her skin is anything to go by, he grabs her ankles and settles her feet in his lap.

Even compared to his hands, they’re freezing, but she lets out a contented sigh as he starts rubbing her arches.

“I’d love you too,” she says drowsily, a few minutes later. Her feet finally feel warm, though he’s left them in his lap and covered them up with an extra blanket. 

“Hmm?” he asks, dragging his attention away from the movie.

“If you lost all your toes,” she sighs, and her eyes close. “I’d still love you, too.”

* * *

**Who had that embarrassing Reality TV marathon?**

* * *

Clarke knows that Bellamy always gets a little stir crazy during the summer when he’s not teaching classes, but this is the first summer since they’ve moved in together and honestly, Clarke is not prepared for the reality of summer with Bellamy Blake.  
****

Not that she regrets it or anything; no, it’s really nice to have him still there when she wakes up in the morning, waiting at the dining table with her coffee the way she likes it and the crossword puzzle from the newspaper half filled out. Or sometimes he’s even still in bed when she wakes, which is especially nice because he’ll usually give her a reason or two to want to stay in bed with him even longer.

But Clarke is not at all prepared for what becomes his daily habit while she’s busy in her studio.

For weeks, every time she comes out, he’s concentrating fiercely on TLC or WE TV.  _Bridezillas, Say Yes to the Dress_ ,  _My Fair Wedding, Four Weddings_ …

“Okay, what is  _up_ with you?” Clarke demands finally, unable to take it anymore. 

Bellamy Blake watches the History Channel. He watches A&E. Sometimes he watches the Disney Channel, and that’s cool because Clarke does too. But Bellamy Blake is a  _huge_ nerd, and Bellamy Blake does. Not. Watch. Wedding. Shows.

“Research,” he says brusquely, and shoves his reading glasses back up his nose as he makes notes in a freaking spiral-bound notebook. 

Clarke leaves it at that for the moment, ill at ease, only to ask again the next day.

This time, she doesn’t let him brush her off, and all of his research ends up wasted when he end up yelling at her that he wants to marry her, and she blinks and says, “Okay.”

* * *

**Who laughs more during sex? C L A R K E (but it’s Bellamy’s fault)**

* * *

“I can’t believe you were watching trashy wedding reality shows for  _research_ ,” Clarke gasps as Bellamy rids her of her panties and bra.

He snorts, and then starts laughing, and that sets Clarke off so that when he moves his mouth between her legs she’s giggling.

Even as he teases her until she’s flushed and aching, she can feel the occasional laugh against her flesh, and it keeps her going, until one clever move of his tongue and fingers in unison transforms her laughter into a long, loud moan when she comes.

“Stop laughing,” he says to her when she comes down from the high, but he’s got a dumbass grin on his own face as he slides into her. 

“You first,” she retorts, wrapping her legs around his waist until her ankles cross, biting her bottom lip to keep in her smile.

And that’s how they go on, Clarke’s hips lifting to meet his thrusts, Bellamy’s thumb rubbing circles on her clit, the happiness bubbling up out of their throats, and they’re just a tangle of limbs and need and joy.

* * *

**WHO IS THE LITTLE SPOON? B O T H**

* * *

Every night he goes to sleep holding Clarke, curved around the arch of her spine, palm splayed over her ribcage while the other arm is tucked under her head. And Bellamy likes it like that, likes the sharp sweet scent of her hair as he falls asleep, like green apples and sugar cookies.

But he likes the way he wakes up, too, Clarke clinging to his back like a koala, little puffs of breath warming his shoulder blade because she never, ever wakes up before him. He likes waiting for her to wake up and realize she’s done it yet again, because before summer started she didn’t believe him when he told her she did it every single night, and just didn’t know because he had to get out of bed for work before she woke.

Mostly, though, he just likes falling asleep and waking up with Clarke.

He plans on doing it for the rest of his life.


	33. Single Parents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: "single parent au + bellarke"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was SUPPOSED to be one of those "send me an au and I'll give you 5+ headcanons" things, but to no one's surprise this prompt created an actual little fic. I'm a sucker for domestic parent Bellarke fluff.

Bellamy’s settled at the picnic table next to the playground with a stack of essays to grade. He’s in middle of giving one of his tenth-graders a B+ when something tugs on his sleeve, making his pen skid across the page. 

He sighs and looks down. “What is it, bud?” 

“Darcy fell down,” Gus tells him solemnly, and that’s when he notices the tiny little blonde peeking around his son’s side. Her round cheeks are pink and tear-stained, but she’s down to sniffles. 

“She did?” Bellamy replies, capping his pen. “Any major injuries?”

The little girl––Darcy––looks confused, but Gus nods and points. “Her knee got hurted.” 

“Hurt,” Bellamy corrects. “Where are your parents?” he asks the girl, and her face crumples. 

When she starts to cry, tiny, gut-wrenching sobs, Bellamy mentally swears and hopes her parents aren’t going to kill him for picking her up. But she can’t be more than three years old, and other than Gus she’s about the cutest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s got to do  _something_ in the face of her sad little tears.

“Hey,” he says softly, crouching in front of her and holding out his hands. “It’s okay.” 

She hiccups and throws herself into Bellamy’s arms, nearly knocking him on his ass. Once he’s got his balance back, he stands up, rubbing a gentle hand on her back. 

“Don’t worry about it, Darcy,” he says. “You can stay right here with us until your parents come.” It’s only feet from the playground, a prime vantage point for watching the kids, and easily seen by frantic parents in search of a missing child.

“Gus, get the first aid kit out, please,” he tells his son, and Gus hurries over to the backpack holding their lunch and the little first aid kit that Bellamy’s learned never to travel without. Gus is adventurous––a little  _too_ adventurous for his peace of mind, but his mother told Bellamy that he’d been just the same. 

“Let’s get you fixed up, okay?” he says to Darcy, and she pulls her face out of his neck.

“Kay,” she says, rubbing at her eyes. She tries to push away the wispy blonde curls that have stuck to her damp face, and wrinkles her nose when she can’t get them.

Chuckling, Bellamy sets her down on the table and helps fix her hair. “There you go.” 

He smiles at her, and she smiles timidly back. 

He talks her through cleaning her scraped knee, and though her lip trembles when he uses the antiseptic wipe, she doesn’t cry again. Gus is helping her choose between Captain America bandaids and unicorn bandaids when Bellamy hears a shout. 

“Darcy!” 

“Mama!” Darcy squeaks.

He turns and sees a woman sprinting toward them, and he notes that Darcy’s the spitting image of her mother. 

“Oh my god,” she gasps, shoving past him to grab Darcy’s little shoulders, pat down her arms like she’s checking for injury. “Baby, you can’t scare us like that!” She squeezes Darcy in a hug and lets out a long, shuddering sigh.

“Sorry,” Bellamy says awkwardly. He’s not sorry for helping the little girl, but he is sorry her mother was so obviously frightened. “Gus brought her over when she fell, and she didn’t know where you were.”

“No,” she sniffs, straightening up. Her golden hair is falling out of a braid, and one piece is tickling right above her mouth where he notices a little beauty mark. “Thank you. My mom was supposed to be watching her while I went to the bathroom, but then she had to take a call, and she lost track of her, and I’ve been going out of my mind for the last fifteen minutes.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to reply, but his son interrupts.

“Daddy fixed her all better,” Gus tells her earnestly. “See? Captain Unicorn.”

She makes little  _oohs_  and  _ahs_  at the two different bandaids plastered on her daughter’s knee, slightly crooked. 

She thanks Gus very seriously for his help, and then hauls Darcy up onto her hip as she turns to Bellamy.

“Thank you,” she says again. “Really. I don’t…” To his horror, her blue eyes grow glassy and she clears her throat repeatedly. 

“Please, don’t worry about it,” he says hastily. “I just held onto her until you came for her. No big deal.” 

He can’t tell for sure, but he’s pretty positive he’d be as gutted by the mother’s tears as he was by the daughter’s.

She gives him a sincere if watery smile. “It’s a very big deal to me. I’m Clarke,” she adds, and shifts Darcy so she can hold out a hand. 

“Bellamy,” he says, shaking it, and then Gus thrusts out his hand for a shake, too.

* * *

When Bellamy’s sister comes over for Sunday night dinner, Gus can’t wait to tell his Aunt O about his new friend from the playground. Bellamy’s stirring the pasta sauce at the stove while Gus chatters away about Darcy, and how she was lost and hurt and they fixed her knee, and then her mommy came and shook Daddy’s hand  _and_ Gus’s hand, and then she kissed Daddy, and then Darcy and her mommy had to go home.

“Wait, back it up, mister,” Octavia says, and Bellamy groans quietly. “Darcy’s mommy  _kissed_ your dad?”

“Mm hmm,” Gus replies.

“On the  _cheek_ ,” Bellamy says. “It was a thank you type of thing.”

(It was  _awesome._ )

Bellamy swears he can  _feel_  Octavia smirking at him.

* * *

"Wait, Darcy’s mom’s name is Clarke?” Octavia asks later, over dinner. Gus is  _still_ going on about his new friends. “Blonde, about my age, super hot?”

Bellamy coughs. “Uh, sure. Yeah,” he says, as if he didn’t notice just how attractive Clarke was.

“I know her,” Octavia says. “Darcy’s in my tiny tots class.” 

He frowns. “But so is Gus.” He thinks he’d remember seeing either Darcy or Clarke at the kids’ jiu-jitsu lessons his sister teaches.

“Yeah, but he’s in the Tuesday-Thursday group. Darcy’s in the Monday-Wednesday-Friday class,” Octavia explains.

Bellamy makes it a week before he breaks down and lets Octavia know they’ll be switching to the Monday-Wednesday-Friday class.

“Gus wanted to see Darcy again,” he says, defensive.

“Uh huh,” Octavia replies dryly. 

* * *

“Hi,” he says lamely when Clarke notices him among the other parents in the waiting area. “Is this weird? Crap, this is weird, isn’t it.”

She blinks, still registering the fact that he’s in front of her, then laughs. “No, it’s fine. Is Gus just starting here?”

He shakes his head and drags his coat off the bench next to him. To his relief, she takes him up on the silent invitation, sitting in the cleared spot. 

It’s a popular class, which is why Bellamy had preferred to take Gus to the less busy Tuesday-Thursday sessions. But now he’s grateful the waiting area is so crowded, because the length of her thigh is pressed against his as she squeezes in next to him.

“We switched groups,” he admits. “My sister actually teaches the class.”

Clarke lets out a little ‘oh’ of realization. “Well, Darcy will be excited to see Gus. My dad’s starting to feel replaced as her favorite go-to guy with how much she talks about you two.”

“Your dad? Not her dad?” he finds himself asking, and then wants to kick himself because  _jesus_ , can he be any more obvious?

Her eyes go a little soft and sad, and when she says, “Mine. Her dad passed away before she was born,” Bellamy wants to pretty much punch himself in the face.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t––I shouldn't have asked.”

“It’s alright,” Clarke says, nudging him with her elbow until he meets her eyes. She makes a show of looking down at his bare left hand, then back at him. “But fair’s fair.”

“Sole custody,” Bellamy explains. “She wasn’t interested in being a mom.”

Clarke hums and looks through the observation window. Darcy and Gus are giggling wildly as Octavia leads the group through a tumbling exercise. “Too bad,” she says. “He seems like a pretty great kid.”

“So does she,” Bellamy says, and when she beams at him he doesn’t even try to tell himself that he doesn’t have a huge, fat crush on Darcy’s mom.

* * *

They sit next to each other during the kids’ jiu-jitsu lessons for the next three weeks, and Bellamy learns that she does art therapy at the same hospital where her mother is a surgeon, and she has a little house about a five minute drive from his, and Darcy just turned three. 

He tells her about Gus, that his full name is Augustus, that he turns five in a couple months, and that until she died last year, his mother used to watch him while Bellamy taught at the high school. Now it’s a mix of preschool, his sister, and babysitters that allow Bellamy to go to work.

“My dad’s retired,” Clarke says. “He usually watches Darcy when I’m working. If you ever need someone to take Gus, I’m sure he’d love to have him.”

“Oh,” Bellamy says. “Uh, I don’t know if––”

“If you wanted to do a trial run, he could watch Gus and Darcy on Friday after tiny tots,” she continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “I already checked, and he said he would.” 

“Yeah?” he says slowly, so he doesn’t stumble over his words like an overexcited fourteen-year-old. “What would, uh, we do?”

“I like frozen yogurt,” she says hesitantly, and he can’t keep himself from kissing her for one second longer.

When he pulls away, sooner than he wants to but later than he should have, given that they’re surrounded by other parents in a crowded room, she looks a little dazed.

“Sounds perfect,” he says, and this time, she’s the one who kisses him.

* * *

When Bellamy and Clarke go to pick up the kids from the Griffins’ house at the end of their fifth date, both of her parents open the door. Gus is clinging to Abby’s hand, and Darcy is on Jake’s shoulders, a gleeful look on her face as she clutches his hair for balance. Bellamy nearly has a heart attack when she lurches forward at the sight of them, squealing “Bell-me!” 

He reaches up and grabs her before she topples off, and only when she’s securely perched on his hip does his heart start to slow down again. 

“Hi,” she says, patting his cheek. “Hi Mama,” she adds a moment later. 

“Hi, baby,” Clarke replies, her voice highly amused. 

“Daddy! We made cookies!” Gus says, and leaves Abby to throw his arms around Clarke’s knees. “We got in trouble ‘cause we ate the dough.”

“Hey, that was supposed to be our secret,” Jake says, winking at Gus. 

“Please don’t teach our children to keep secrets from us,” Clarke says dryly, one hand absently carding through Gus’s dark curls, and Bellamy’s stomach does a funny sort of flop at the ease with which she says  _our._

“Thanks for watching them,” Bellamy says, and Abby beams at him. 

“Anytime,” she says, but her tone makes it clear it’s more of an order than a suggestion.

* * *

They name their third child Ella. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY NOT SORRY FOR MORE BABIES


	34. Hand in Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anonymous on tumblr: “uhhh, this is a prompt i saw somewhere else. but could you do a modern AU for bellarke where bellamy is afraid to lose clarke in crowds because of how short she is so he holds her hand and eventually she starts to notice he is doing it even when it is just a few people. please.” 
> 
> The fic warped a little bit from the prompt, but I hope you still like it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long! I'm sorry about the wait. Basically, I've been stuck on about four different tumblr prompt WIPs, and I just COULDN'T get them to work! And I felt guilty about already having so many WIPs, and I didn't want to start another in the hopes that I could get something publishable and end up with even more writer's block WIPs. But I finally got through this one! You may realize that a lot of my problems working through it stem from the fact that it WOULDN'T END. Seriously, this one's over 5K. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

It starts with a concert.

Raven gets horrifically sick at the last minute. If their other friend weren’t out of town meeting Lincoln’s parents, she could go with Clarke instead—but Octavia _is_ out of town, dealing with future in-laws.

“Clarke, you should still go,” Raven says, and sneezes. “Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean you should have to miss it.”

“Oh, no,” Bellamy says from the kitchen. Clarke had bugged him until he agreed to come over and make Raven some of his soup. When Clarke had roomed with Octavia freshman year of college, they’d both gotten sick with the flu; Bellamy had somehow fit in time between preparing for his master’s thesis and TAing for a classics class to bring them a huge pot of savory vegetable soup.

It had been delicious, and by the time they managed to finish it all by the end of the week, they were both cured. Sick of soup, but cured.

“What?” Clarke asks as he emerges into the living room now, wooden spoon still in hand.

He points at her with it. “You’re not going into the city alone at night,” he says firmly, and Clarke crosses her arms.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not the boss of me,” she retorts. Bellamy narrows his eyes, but before he can respond, Raven groans.

“Give it a rest. God, give _me_ a rest.” She’s curled up on the couch in a nest of blankets and tissues, looking glassy-eyed and miserable.

Bellamy immediately moves to the couch and lays his free hand on her forehead. “You’re still hot,” he says, frowning.

Raven rolls her eyes and bats his hand away. “I’m always hot,” she gripes.

“It’s true,” Clarke says solemnly, though she gets up and brings Raven a fresh glass of cranberry juice.

“Drink your juice,” Bellamy orders.

As she sips, she grabs something from the clutter surrounding her on the couch and throws it at Bellamy’s face.

“Nice, Reyes,” he grumbles, but picks it up from where it fell on the ground.

“Stop complaining, Blake. You just got yourself a ticket to a concert that’s been sold out for months,” Raven says, and starts coughing.

“Oh god,” he says with a tone of dread, and Clarke sticks her tongue out at him.

“I’ll bet you twenty bucks you have a good time.”

Bellamy’s skeptical expressions says it all.

* * *

The crowds at the concert are enthusiastic—too enthusiastic, and Clarke is basically having to rely on the claustrophobic press of bodies on every side to keep her upright, because the movement of the crowd keeps making her lose her footing.

Then a strong hand grasps hers, and she collides hard against Bellamy’s chest, which—well, it’s not the worst thing to happen to Clarke. You know, in the history of human events. (It’s actually kind of great.)

He looks down at her with a grim expression.

“Don’t let go.” He has to yell it in her ear three times before she understands what he’s trying to tell her, and she nods.

She doesn’t let go, not through “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark” or “Thnks fr th Mmrs” or “Just One Yesterday,” and yeah, their grasp is sweaty and hot, but every inch of her is sweaty and hot after jumping and dancing and screaming along with the lyrics. It just feels normal, instead of gross.

And, come on. Like she’s going to give up the chance to hold his stupid hand. The idiot may be one of her best friends, but things like this are rare, and since she’s kind of been in love with him since that stupid soup thing freshman year, she plans on taking everything she can get.

“Don’t try to say you didn’t have fun,” Clarke says when they’re slowly filing their way out of the outdoor amphitheater after the encore. “I _know_ I saw a smile somewhere in there.”

“Oh, you did,” he says immediately. “Lots of smiling. Because I was laughing at you. The whole time.”

Clarke just grins, too hyped still to bother pretending to be offended by his teasing. “You liked it,” she sings. “Bellamy Blake loves Fall Out Boy, pass it on!”

He shrugs, and uses his grasp on her hand to lead her around a little huddle of whimpering concert-goers who aren’t dealing too well with whatever they consumed at the concert. “I kind of liked one,” he admits. “The one where they sang something about Rome in ruins? Though I’m pretty sure they said antivenom, not antivenin, which is _wrong_ —”

She squeezes his hand and curls her other hand around his arm, leaning into him. “That’s how it starts, my friend. That’s how it starts.”

By the time they reach the quiet parking garage where Bellamy left his car, an insane number of blocks away to avoid the concert traffic, she’s fading fast.

“Come on, Clarke,” he says, jabbing the button for the elevator with his free hand. “Almost there.”

“I’m tired,” she grumbles. She rubs her cheek against the damp sleeve of his t-shirt, then wrinkles her nose. “You smell.”

“You’re no garden of roses, either,” he tells her, and drags her out of the elevator when it arrives at their floor.

“I don’t even like roses. _You_ don’t even like roses. Why would I want to smell like a garden of roses?”

He tucks her into the car, and when he lets go, her hand is strangely cool all by itself.

“Well, luckily for you, you don’t. Why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll wake you up when we get back to your apartment.”

Clarke’s already shaking her head as he turns the key in the ignition. “Oh, no. You’re not getting out of it that easy, mister.”

“Getting out of what?” Bellamy asks warily as he starts driving.

“The complete concert experience. After a concert is over, you have to listen to the band’s entire discography on the drive home.” He glances at her, clearly skeptical, and she shrugs. “I didn’t make the rules.”

“But you already made us listen to Fall Out Boy all the way _to_ the concert,” he argues. Clarke ignores him, and turns up the stereo. It’s on _American Beauty/American Psycho_ , and though Bellamy sighs when the next song starts, he’s got a tiny smile on his face.

(She doesn’t mean to, but she falls asleep somewhere between _Keep you like an oath_ and _You were the song stuck in my head, every song that I’ve ever loved.)_

* * *

Raven is moaning and groaning and threatening to throw up _on_ Clarke if she makes her eat one more bowl of Bellamy’s soup, but when she finishes the last sip, her fever has broken, her cough is down to the occasional little tickle, and her sinuses have finally cleared up.

She glares at Clarke and Bellamy; Octavia’s still gone, so it’s just the three of them out for an early dinner. “Why didn’t you wait to give me the damn soup? Two more days and I could have rescheduled my robotics talk.”

“Stop being a baby,” Clarke orders. “You’ve been preparing for that talk for months _.”_

“That doesn’t mean I _want_ to do it,” her roommate grumbles. “It means I hate public speaking and I hate you for telling me I should do this.”

“You’ll be fine,” Clarke says, waving her hand airily. “Bellamy has to give lectures every day; if he can manage, you’ll do fine.”

“Thanks,” Bellamy says flatly.

“He lectures to fifteen-year-olds, Clarke,” Raven says. “Not PhDs. How am I supposed to lecture to PhDs?”

Reminding her that _she_ has a PhD isn’t going to help, so Clarke shrugs. “Pretend they’re Wick.”

Raven starts to argue, then pauses thoughtfully. “Huh.”

* * *

“You’re coming to her talk, right?” Clarke asks Bellamy later. It’s Thursday night, meaning Market Fest is going on in the park, and after eating half her weight in Thai food, Clarke’s desperate to walk around a little. Bellamy had agreed relatively easily to the plan, though it’s just the two of them. Raven headed home to barricade herself in her room so she can practice her speech—even though she’s had it memorized for five weeks.

“Yeah. O made me promise to go—help her ‘represent Blakehood’ or whatever.”

As if he wouldn’t just go to support Raven, Clarke thinks fondly.

Ahead of them are throngs of people, checking out the same old craft booths that set up every week as if there’s going to be something new.

Bellamy’s hand catches hers, and she glances at him.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says. “You’re like two feet tall. You could be gone in a blink of an eye in a crowd like this.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re ridiculous?” But she just repositions their hands so their fingers interlace.

It ends up being a good idea, the hand-holding thing, one, because she likes it, and two, because the mediocre local band playing at the park’s little amphitheater does a couple decent covers of classic songs, and Clarke’s hold on Bellamy makes it easy to drag him into the crowd and dance with her.

He rolls his eyes, but grins as he uses their attached hands to twirl her around so the skirt of her dress spins around her knees.

When she’s breathless and dizzy, she lets him lead her away from the dancing to one of the concession stands. They split a bottle of water as the sun starts to set, and Clarke lets herself lean into him a little.

“Octavia gets back tomorrow night,” Bellamy says while they people-watch.

Clarks nods. “I’m supposed to pick them up from the airport at six. You want to come?”

“Sure. I get off around four.”

“I could pick you up from work,” Clarke offers. She knows he usually walks from his apartment to the high school only a few blocks away. “We could grab a bite to eat before going to get them.”

He squeezes her hand. “Sounds good to me.”

* * *

Clarke parks on the street and hops out of the car; there are still hordes of high schoolers milling around, and she has to deal with more than a couple blatant stares from gross teenage boys as she tries to get to Bellamy’s classroom.

She finds him just as he’s locking up, and pokes him in the shoulder blade.

“Hey. Teenagers are gross,” she tells him, and he snorts, turning around.

“I am, unfortunately, all-too-aware of that fact,” he tells her. “Given that I’m surrounded by them for a minimum of forty hours a week.”

“That’s your poor choice.”

“Don’t act superior just because you get to work from home,” he grumbles. “I’m still convinced you went freelance just so you could avoid dealing with people on a daily basis.”

Clarke shrugs. “True, that is a benefit. But mostly I was tired of my boss hitting on me.”

Bellamy jerks to a stop, so Clarke is jerked to a stop, too, which makes her realize their hands are tangled together. It makes sense, she guesses, given the still-thick crowds of teenagers between them and her car. “ _That’s_ why you left Mount Weather Design?”

“Yeah,” Clarke replies, a little puzzled by Bellamy’s glare. “And I figured I was good enough at the graphic design thing to survive, so why not?”

“Because you shouldn’t have to leave a secure job for self-employment because your boss is a sick asshole. You should have told me. I could have—I don’t know, I could have gotten Lincoln and Miller. Had a _talk_ with him.”

She pats his arm. “It’s okay, Bellamy. It worked out well—like you said, I like working from home. My people, we stay indoors. We have keyboards. We have darkness. It's quiet.”

Bellamy looks pained, which is at least an improvement from furious and/or homicidal. “Please don’t quote Neil Gaiman at me.”

Though she knows she’s the absolute worst at winking without looking like an idiot, Clarke winks at him anyway. “Why, does it do something to you?”

“Yes,” he says firmly. “It reminds me that you’re a huge nerd, and I don’t know why I’m friends with you.”

“Hey! You’re the one who recognized the quote; if anyone’s a huge nerd, it’s you!”

Before he can reply, a pubescent voice echoes through the air. “Go, Mr. Blake! _Gettin’ it_!” A few whistles and catcalls follow.

“Sterling, I didn’t know you were interested in another week of detention,” Bellamy calls back pleasantly. He doesn’t look around for the culprit, just smiles wryly down at Clarke.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “But if I denied it, I’d lose all of my street cred.”

“Well. Wouldn’t want to deny you of your hard-earned street cred,” Clarke says, bumping him with her hip.

They make their way through the throng of teenagers, snickers and whispers still surrounding them, but there isn’t any more yelling or audible innuendo. The sidewalks are much emptier than the school grounds, and Clarke reluctantly lets go of Bellamy’s hand to dig through her purse for her keys.

Dinner is nice; the airport isn’t too far away, so they don’t have to rush. Bellamy gets the falafel, Clarke gets the shawarma, and they steal off of each other’s plates. Bellamy tries to protect his last bite from Clarke’s questing fork, but she reaches over and pinches his arm, nabbing the falafel while he’s busy muttering profanities under his breath. They get baklava for dessert, and she tries the same trick, but Bellamy just catches her hand before she can pinch, keeping it trapped in his while they finish.

It would be cheaper and make more sense to stay in the car in the waiting lot until Octavia texts them that they’re outside with their baggage, ready to be picked up—but Octavia’s always been a fan of the cheesy movie scenes where people are waiting for loved ones inside, so Clarke parks and they walk together into the airport.   

Clarke’s trying to get Bellamy to admit he’s been listening to Fall Out Boy since the concert, and he’s busy laughing and trying to deflect her increasingly insistent questioning when they hear Octavia.

“Clarke! Bellamy!”

They both glance up, and see Octavia and Lincoln weaving around other travelers. When the couple reaches them, Octavia’s footsteps falter a little as she looks between them, brow raised with a smirk slowly spreading across her lips.

Bellamy doesn’t seem to notice, already moving forward to embrace his little sister, but Clarke’s suddenly aware of the fact he had to let go of her hand to do so.

She shouldn’t be embarrassed, shouldn’t be blushing—Octavia knows that she and Bellamy are best friends, and it’s an airport. Airports are crowded. Busy. It was a reasonable precaution on his part.

It doesn’t mean anything that would result in Octavia looking at them like _that._

She stuffs her unease down into the deep, dark corner of her brain where she’d tried to stuff her feelings for Bellamy Blake, and moves forward to hug Lincoln.

“Hi, Clarke,” he says, and she beams.

“Hi! How was it?”

“Indra is scary,” Octavia says, squeezing Clarke in a hug of her own. “But I’m pretty sure she loves me. Like, really deep down. But the love is there.”

“Nyko would probably steal her away from me if he could,” Lincoln says.

“He couldn’t,” Octavia says, looping her arm through her fiancé’s and pressing a kiss to his jaw. “Your brother’s cute and all, but I’m already set.”

“You two hungry?” Lincoln asks as they make their way out of the airport. “We thought we’d take you out to dinner as a thank you for picking us up.”

“Oh,” Clarke says. “Actually, we already ate. We thought you’d be too tired from traveling to go out.”

“Clarke stole my falafel,” Bellamy adds, and Clarke flicks him in the arm.

“Tattletale.”

“Okay,” Octavia says slowly. “Well, we are kind of beat. We can just order in, right babe?”

Lincoln smiles down at Octavia. “Sounds good to me.”

“Hey, we’ll see you both at Raven’s robotics talk, right?” Clarke asks.

“Yeah,” Octavia replies, “I want to see her yell at old white men about how they’re idiots.”

“Well, you’ll probably have to wait for the Q&A portion, but it’s highly likely,” Bellamy replies.

They chat more about Lincoln and Octavia’s trip during the drive to their little house, about how Lincoln’s mom invited Octavia to spar with her and then proceeded to knock her on her ass about a thousand times, about how Lincoln’s older brother was welcoming and kind whenever he was able to stop by between shifts at the hospital. Finally, after a brief goodbye, Clarke and Bellamy are alone in the car again.

“What are your plans for the rest of the night?” Clarke asks as she navigates them through town. “Grading?”

“Some,” Bellamy acknowledges. “But I went easy on my students this week. No papers.”

Clarke hums. She’s in between projects right now, and Raven’s undoubtedly still practicing her talk. When Clarke had left their apartment earlier that day, she had been stress-cooking while she muttered technical terms under her breath.

Then she pictures Bellamy sprawled across the couch she helped him pick out when he moved into his newer, nicer apartment, wearing those dorky hot reading glasses that always slide down his nose while he grades.

“Can I help?” she finds herself asking.

“Help?” Bellamy echoes. “Help _grade_?”

“Sure,” Clarke says. “Why not?”

“Uh, because it’s Friday night? Don’t you have something, I don’t know, more exciting to do?”

Clarke shrugs, parallel parking on the street in front of his apartment. “Not really.”

She turns in her seat to see him looking at her.

“Wow. You’re the worst twenty-five-year-old I’ve ever met,” he tells her.

“Screw you,” she says. “I’m awesome.”

He laughs and grabs his bag from the backseat. “You can come up if you want. I have some vocab quizzes you could grade.”

“Great.” She pauses. “Excellent. Phenomenal. Tremendous—”

“I will destroy everything you love,” he tells her, and she bites in a smile, halting her thesaurus impression.

Inside, they kick off their shoes, Bellamy pours them both glasses of wine, and once they curl up next to each other on the couch, the hours somehow pass in a slow, comfortable haze. Every once in a while, Clarke will read out a student’s truly hilarious attempt to define a word they clearly don’t recognize, and Bellamy will offer choice tidbits from the students’ daily writing exercises.

Clarke falls asleep over the last quiz, and wakes up a couple hours later to Bellamy’s soft snores as his heart beats under her cheek. Her hand has gone kind of numb with the way he’s holding onto it, but she just adjusts until the feeling starts tingling back, and falls right back into her dreams.

* * *

Bellamy grumbles about his back the next morning, Clarke makes fun about him acting like an old man, he cooks them breakfast, and it’s like any other morning she’s woken up after falling asleep at his place.

Except for the part where they slept together on the couch instead of one of them taking the bed, and the part where Clarke woke up to him, uh, _pressed_ against her thigh.

Guys can’t help that kind of thing, she had told herself, and had untangled herself from his arms before he woke up and became embarrassed. If her own cheeks were hot, her own body warm and yearning, well, that was her own damn problem.

Clarke leaves to get cleaned up while Bellamy showers, making plans to meet outside of the university building where Raven’s talk is being held.

Raven’s leaving their apartment, dressed in a pair of killer boots and a blazer Clarke might just die for, just as Clarke gets home. She swings her laptop bag onto her shoulder, props a crate full of robot parts on her hip as she raises an eyebrow.

“Late night, huh, Griffin?” she asks.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I was at Bellamy’s.”

“And?”

Clarke stares. “And?”

Raven scoffs. “And you didn’t screw that boy six ways to Sunday?”

“Raven!”

“What does he have to do?” Raven wonders. “Rip his clothes off, yell ‘take me, I’m yours’?”

“He’s— _we_ are not like that,” Clarke mutters.

“Oh, Clarke.” Raven reaches out with the hand not holding the crate on her hip and pats Clarke’s cheek. “Clarke, Clarke, Clarke.”

“Hey!” Clarke says as Raven turns to leave. “What did that mean?”

“It means I have to go start setting up for my talk, and I have nowhere near the amount of time I need to tell you just how wrong you are,” Raven calls, and then she’s out of sight, the door to their building swinging shut behind her.

Clarke sticks her tongue out at the closed door, then goes to get ready.

* * *

Bellamy doesn’t light up when he sees her approaching Wellman Hall, okay. He just smiles and straightens, eyes crinkling at the corners the way they do when he’s happy, waving at her as she makes a face at the group of glacially-slow visiting professors getting their man-spread on ahead of her and taking up the entire path.

“Hey,” he says, tugging on a piece of her hair when she finally reaches him. She swats his hand away, and his grin grows wider.

“Octavia and Lincoln?” she asks.

“Already inside. O wanted a front row seat for watching Raven make old white men cry.”

Clarke snorts as they walk into the building. A huge group is milling around the lobby area, drinking punch out of styrofoam cups and eating grocery store cookies.

“You want something?” Bellamy asks doubtfully.

“Not from here. You?”

“Hell no.”

“Lunch afterward?”

“God, yes.”

They squeeze through the crowd to enter the lecture hall; it’s the biggest on campus, capable of holding hundreds and hundreds of people. Raven’s dragged them along to various talks hosted by the university before, but this is the first time she’s the one up behind the podium.

Octavia and Lincoln are seated in the front row, far left, and Clarke sees the familiar dirty blonde head sitting directly in front of the podium. Raven may be grimacing at Wick, but Clarke knows her well enough to read the relief in her face.

“Come on,” Bellamy says, tugging her along. He leads them to the closest seats available, which are halfway back in the lecture hall. He scoots in first, taking the inside seat and leaving Clarke with the aisle like she likes. It used to drive him nuts when they went to the movies, that she _had_ to be on the aisle, and he’d complain about the way the screen looked funny when they weren’t centered in the theater.

“Go sit somewhere else, then,” she’d say; he would grumble and stay right there in the seat next to her.

Funny, though. Clarke realizes she can’t remember the last time he complained when they went to the movies.

Raven doesn’t make any old white men cry, but she does make more than one raise his voice until it cracks in anxious indignation. Whenever that happens, Clarke swears she can hear Octavia snickering all the way at the front.

But overall the talk, as much as Clarke understands of it as a graphic designer, goes well, and Raven’s demonstration of one of her robots basically constructing itself is terrifyingly amazing in an _Age of Ultron_ sort of way, and most of the old white men leave the lecture hall with expressions of disgruntled awe.

Clarke and Bellamy head to the lowest level of the lecture hall, meeting up with Octavia, Lincoln, and Wick, and they stay behind and wait for Raven to finish up with the last stragglers asking questions. When she finally bids farewell to the last one, she turns to them, a weary but ecstatic look on her face.

Then she snorts. “What is up with you two?”

Clarke and Bellamy exchange glances. “Uh, what?”

Raven reaches out and snags Wick’s hand, raising their clasped hands in the air as if celebrating a wrestling win. “ _That._ ”

Clarke glances down, and it’s true; Bellamy’s fingers are interlaced with hers yet again. Her conscious mind has apparently stopped registering when it happens, preferring to just let her subconsciously enjoy the limited contact.

How pathetic is she, that she gets so much contentment out of holding his hand.

She can’t decide if she should pull away when he says, “I didn’t want to lose her in the crowd.”

She glances up at him, brow furrowing, but before she can speak, all of her friends burst out laughing.

“Bell,” Octavia wheezes, leaning into Lincoln for support as she’s apparently made weak with laughter. “There’s, like, four other people here right now.”

“Maybe he can see ghosts,” Raven says. “Maybe there’s like a hundred ghosts in here right now, waiting to take Clarke to the Other Side. He’s always been kind of weird and into nerdy old stuff.”

“No, before—” Bellamy growls and cuts himself off. “Fuck you.” He pulls his hand out of Clarke’s and leaves her staring after him as he takes the stairs two at a time to the exit at the top of the room.

“Baby,” Octavia says fondly when she calms down.

Clarke’s still staring at the exit. “I’m going to…” She motions vaguely at the door. “I’ve got to go. See you guys later!”

Her legs are much shorter than Bellamy’s, so she can only take the stairs one at a time, which means there’s plenty of time for Raven to wolf whistle at her while Wick whoops, Octavia cheers, and Lincoln laughs quietly.

She doesn’t immediately see him when she gets outside, so she takes off at a run toward the parking lot, hoping to catch him before he reaches his car. She does, but just barely, and she hardly has time to register the surprise on his face when he sees her before she’s hunching over and bracing her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

“Why…are you…so _tall_?” Clarke pants. Seriously, the amount of ground he can cover in a couple minutes is truly impressive.

He’s silent for a moment. “Why are you so short?”

“Hey.” She breathes deeply, straightens. “I’m only a few inches below the average female height.”

He eyes her suspiciously. “How do you define ‘few’?”

She rolls her eyes. “Bellamy.”

“Clarke.”

“What was that?”

“What was what?” But he fidgets a little, turning his car keys over and over in his hands. She plucks them out of his hold, tucks them into the pocket of his jeans and hides a smile when he lets out a small noise. Then she grabs his hand in hers, pressing palm to palm and winding her fingers through his.

“This, Bellamy,” she says.

He stares at their hands for a minute. “Nothing.”

“Really?”

“…No.”

She can’t help the smile that curves her lips. “Good. Because it’s not nothing to me.”

His eyes search hers. “Clarke?”

“You realize you don’t need to make up excuses to hold my hand,” Clarke tells him. She tries for a nonchalant tone and mostly succeeds, which is kind of impressive in her opinion, given the frantic way her heart’s been beating since she finally realized maybe all the hand-holding wasn’t of the strictly-practical-and-friendly variety on his part.

Bellamy watches her warily. “Okay.”

“Seriously,” says Clarke. “You can just do it. No permission necessary. Not because there are crowds, or because I’m asleep and won’t notice.”

He’s still looking at her as if he can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, so she gathers all of her courage, and then borrows some more.

“I’ll demonstrate,” she says, and then tugs hard enough on his hand that he stumbles into her.

“Jesus, Clarke, I nearly––” He’s cut off with an _mmph_ sound when she stands on her toes and plants her lips on his.

Her courage is only good for a few seconds of relishing how his lips feel against hers, surprise keeping his mouth still. Then she’s backing away, cheeks on fire, eyes staring determinedly at his sternum rather than his face.

But his grip on her hand tightens before she can get far, and his other hand tilts her chin up until she can see the stunned look on his face.

“See? No permission needed,” she says weakly.

“Clarke,” he says softly. “Why’d you do that?”

She swallows. “Because I really wanted to,” she says in a tiny voice. “And I might kind of love you a little.”

“Okay,” he says. “Just checking.”

“Just _checking_ ,” Clarke echoes, embarrassment rapidly overtaken by outrage. “Just _checking_? What the _hell_ do you mean by––”

She shuts up because it’s kind of pointless to try and talk when Bellamy’s mouth is moving insistently over her own, and she wiggles her hand out of his so she can reach for his hair with both hands. He kisses her silly, and then kisses her some more, until Clarke’s warm and limp all over.

“I love you, too,” he tells her when he finally stops, and it takes her dazed brain a second to realize what he’s said. When she does register his words, she pulls his hair hard and steps away as he starts cursing.

“What was that?” he demands, rubbing the tender part of his scalp.

She crosses her arms and glares. “What was _that_?” she retorts. “I tell you I love you, and you say _just checking_?”

“I said I love you, too!” Bellamy insists.

“Yeah, eventually,” she says. “Seriously, how do you even function? You can’t even hold a girl’s hand without an excuse, or tell her you love her like a normal human being.”

“I’m also in love with a woman who likes to critique my method of telling her I love her, so clearly I’ve got lots of problems,” he snarks, and Clarke breaks, the grin taking over her face.

“Yeah, you do,” she agrees. “You’re lucky you’ve got someone willing to help you out with those.”

“Yeah.” This time, he steps into her nice and slow, cupping her face deliberately. “I am pretty lucky.”

For the first time, they kiss while they’re both expecting it, and it’s the best one yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope that you liked this one, and that you'll let me know your thoughts if you get a chance!


	35. Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From winterwaters/notmylady on tumblr: “This is my official request for a follow-up to Bellamy’s "next time” promise in ch 22 Dreams"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As implied by the chapter summary, this is the long-delayed follow-up to chapter 22, Dreams. It went a different direction than I had originally imagined, but I hope you still enjoy!
> 
> [SMUT AHEAD]

At 4:35PM exactly, when all the after school club students have left and she’s only minutes away from escaping herself, Clarke pulls out her phone to text Raven.

_made it through the day!!! no more ambushes!!!_

Her friend texts back a few minutes later.

_ur text is very chipper when u consider ur telling me u did NOT make out w/ ur v hot coworker_

Clarke grimaces at her phone and slides it into her bra; her students are gone for the day, and she doesn’t have to worry about being inappropriate. She sets about tidying her classroom, putting stray wire clay clutters back in the bins of supplies, washing down the tables of students who didn’t do quite good enough jobs, covering the unused clay tightly.

She’s erasing her whiteboard, the last thing in her daily clean-up routine, when warm hands slide over her hips, and she barely manages to stifle a shriek.

Clarke slams the eraser down on the tray and whirls around. “What is wrong with you?” she demands as Bellamy smirks down at her. “You get off on scaring the crap out of me?”

“Fancy seeing you here, princess,” he says instead of replying, and Clarke flushes hotly at the reminder of the previous day, when he’d had her pressed up against the whiteboard and willing to do pretty much anything if he’d just keep touching her.

She wiggles out from between him and the whiteboard, and he lets her, though he tucks his hands in his pockets and follows her idly around the classroom as she pretends she’s busy. He doesn’t say anything, but anytime she catches his expression out of the corner of her eye, he just seems way too pleased about the general state of things.

“Why are you here?” Clarke finally says when she’s run out of things to do, and shoulders her purse. She grips her classroom’s door handle tightly, as if her white-knuckled grip on it will keep her from doing something really stupid, like jumping her coworker.

“I promised you that we wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught by students,” he says easily, and then he’s pulling his hands out of his pockets and seizing her by the waist and pulling her in until her front is flush against his.

“Why don’t you let go of the door, Clarke,” he suggests. She manages to resist for about three seconds, then—

“Goddamnit,” she mutters, and lets go to drag his mouth down to hers.

He laughs against her mouth, and though she wants to be angry that she’s making out with Bellamy Blake in her classroom, _again_ , she just isn’t, not when he manages to keep the kiss hot and sweet and pretty much perfect.

One of his hands slides down her hip to her thigh to her knee, and his fingers start inching the fabric of her skirt up at a glacial pace, giving her plenty of time to say no.

She should really say no.

“Hurry up,” she groans, and Bellamy does that laughing-into-her-mouth thing again and cups her over her panties.

Clarke pulls away from the kiss to breathe, and at some point Bellamy moved her back until she was pinned against the door, so her head knocks against it.

It doesn’t hurt, but Bellamy pauses, kisses her cheek. “You okay?”

The tender gesture makes Clarke’s insides do funny things, so she nods. “Yeah. But you won't be, if you don’t _do something_.”

He snorts, and his fingers press up firmly through the damp fabric of her underwear, and Clarke stands on her tiptoes as a long moan slips out of her mouth.

It doesn’t take long, not when he’s pressing hot, wet kisses to her neck and moving his hand insistently no matter how much she squirms, and in no time at all Clarke’s shuddering and her knees are going weak because Bellamy fucking Blake just fingered her to orgasm in her classroom.

Involuntarily, she starts to slide down the door, her limbs heavy; only Bellamy’s quick grip as he chuckles keeps her from ending up on the floor.

She blinks at him, and decides he earned his shit-eating grin.

“Steady there,” he tells her.

Clarke locks her knees and plants her hands on his chest. She kisses him, and then murmurs, “Don’t be cocky,” as one hand slides lower and he lets out a startled groan.

“Fuck,” he mutters as she palms him through his slacks, and yeah, she’s definitely not the only one into this.

The shrill sound of his phone ringing makes her jump and draw her hands away from as if he burned her; Bellamy fumbles, wild-eyed, with his phone until it quiets. But then he groans, looking at the screen.

“What?” Clarke says, and he sighs.

“It was my sister. She was probably calling to remind me about dinner, which is supposed to be at 5:30 at her place.” He shows her the screen, which is nice because she can clearly read ‘Octavia Blake’ in the missed call log, so she knows he’s not making something up to blow her off, or whatever. Then she notices it’s ten past five.

“You’re going to be late if you don’t leave now,” she says. She has no idea where Octavia might live, but it’s a pretty safe bet; it takes a good fifteen minutes at least to get anywhere in their town.

“I’m going to be late no matter what,” he says with a wry smile. “I didn’t mean to get quite so…distracted.”

“Sorry,” she says tartly, not sorry at all. Well, sorry a little bit, because now he’s apparently got to leave.

“I’m not,” he says, and reaches out to adjust the neckline of her blouse. The delicate touch of his fingers against her skin leaves goosebumps. “It was worth it.”

Clarke shakes off the flustered feeling and opens her door, gesturing for him to get out so she can lock up.

“You’re not even a little bit sorry?” she prods as they walk to their cars together. It’s not like they’re lingering in each other’s presence or anything; all the teachers park in the same lot. “I mean…” Clarke glances meaningfully toward his zipper. “I would have, you know.”

Bellamy surprises her by laughing and kissing her, and Clarke doesn’t know whether to be mad that he’s kissing her when any of their late-leaving coworkers could see, or just go with it.

“You can owe me one, if you want,” he says, and then kisses her again. Clarke rolls her eyes, but decides to just go with it, and they make out against her car for a minute until his phone buzzes angrily.

She breaks away, laughing. “Go!”

He grumbles, but pulls open her car door for her when she unlocks it.

“Get home before you pass out, princess.” He shuts the door, taps the top of the car twice, and takes off at a jog toward his truck.

“Shut up,” she grumbles, but can’t stop the smallest smile from curving her lips as she drives away.

* * *

“Maybe I’m psychic or something,” she muses that night after Raven’s drawn the story out of her. “Like, all those sex dreams were prophetic. ‘You will get laid by Bellamy Blake, and it will be awesome,’ or whatever.”

Raven just raises an eyebrow with a wicked smirk. “ _All_? As in more than just the one?”

Clarke pauses. “Oops.”

“Friends don’t refuse to let friends live vicariously through stories of their weird sex dreams about their most hated coworker, Clarke.”

Clarke sighs.

* * *

In the interest of repaying her debt, she blows him after history club later that week, but then he claims that since she used her mouth, it was somehow worth more than when he got her off, so now he’s the one who owes her. And that’s how this thing between them goes, a never-ending series of encounters with the excuse of paying each other back, knowing that they’d never agree the debt was fully settled.

Clarke thinks they could probably definitely get fired if they weren’t as careful as they are, making sure that their classroom curtains are drawn completely, and that their doors are locked, and that any students are long gone.

Once, she thinks about inviting him back to her place, but immediately rejects the idea.

She tells herself she rejects it because the thought of Raven in the house while they, uh, _repaid_ each other is just awkward, and she completely ignores the fact that the idea of sleeping with Bellamy in her actual bed in her actual apartment sounds like it would be pretty great, actually.

It’s not like they’re _dating_ , or anything. They’re just…whatever they are. Coworkers with benefits. She kind of likes him, she guesses, but only a little bit. Sometimes. Like when he accidentally reveals his massive love of puns, and she accuses him of having total Dad Humor, and he tells her, almost shyly, about his younger sister, and how he helped raise her. Or when she’s sick for a couple days, but not sick enough to take off work, and he shoves a travel cup of hot, fragrant tea into her hands in the morning before stalking off, sipping his own cup of hot chocolate.

It goes on like that for a month, and then it’s the last day of the school year. Clarke’s usually excited about summer, and all of her normal plans to make sangria and drink it poolside with literally nothing else to do, but her usual anticipation is tempered with a little bit of misgiving.

Because summer means no school.

And no school means no Bellamy.

Which means…

Clarke doesn’t want to think about what that means, though it makes her feel a little grumpy and a little sad and a little anxious all at once.

So she puts thoughts of summer, and of Bellamy Blake, and what it means that she’s already _missing_ him when they haven’t even left, and she gets through the minimum day, bidding her graduating seniors goodbye and wishing the others a happy summer.

The school buses have just left, the drivers sounding the horns in a cacophony that somehow translated to summer freedom for the students, when Clarke finds another little vase outside her classroom door, this time with a lavender rose in it, and sighs. Jasper is the _worst_ at remembering whose classroom is whose. Resigned, she picks it up, intending to give it to Maya at the staff meeting.

Clarke heads to the conference room. Sterling stalls her on the way, asking shyly about the AP Art course she’s going to start teaching in the fall, and by the time she finishes with him and makes her way into the meeting, everyone else is already there.

The only open chair is right next to Bellamy, which she’s happy about and pretends she isn’t as he pulls his book off the seat so she’ll be able to sit.

He smiles at her before his eyes flick down to the flower in her hand. She grimaces back but makes her way toward him, pausing only when she’s next to Maya.

“Special delivery,” she says, setting the vase down.

Maya frowns. “Clarke, I asked Jasp—” Before she can finish, Principal Indra’s voice booms out, beginning the meeting. Clarke gives Maya an apologetic smile and mouths the word _later._

She drops into the seat next to Bellamy, only now he’s staring hard at the table.

“Hey,” she whispers, nudging his calf with her foot. He pulls his leg away and refuses to look at her.

Well, that’s just fine. That’s just fucking fine. If he wants to act like an immature jerk, acting contradictorily all the damn time, that’s fine.

She's not going to miss him this summer at  _all._

She sits through Indra’s typical end-of-year spiel, going over the number of lock-downs they’d had throughout the year (one, when Charlotte brought a knife to school, though it turned out it was a butter knife), the transition over the past year to the new common core teaching standards (a pain in the butt, though it forced the older teachers to redo their tired, outdated curriculum), the graduation rate of the students (up from last year).

The whole time, Clarke is painfully aware of Bellamy next to her; he’s so still but he’s practically radiating tension. The one time she chances a look at him, he’s glaring straight ahead, a muscle in his jaw jumping angrily, a tendon in his neck standing out.

What does mean about her as a person that she wants to bite it?

Probably best if she doesn’t examine the answer to that question.

Clarke suddenly realizes that nearly everybody is looking at her, and she’s still looking at Bellamy, who is very purposefully still looking anywhere but her direction.

“Uh,” she says.

Indra narrows her eyes a little. “Your plans for AP Art next year, Clarke,” she says, clearly for the second time.

Clarke pastes on a sunny smile and talks for a few minutes about the studio art class, how she wants to focus on painting, sketching, and other canvas-based mediums.

By the time she finishes, and the meeting wraps up, Bellamy hasn’t said a single word.

Bellamy _always_ says something to rile her up in staff meetings, and she honestly gave him plenty of openings when she mused on the possibility of having the students work with live models. Where were the nude jokes? The innuendos? Or at least a scathing criticism of the idea that high school students could be expected to behave appropriately around strangers being paid to sit silently and still in the center of a classroom?

She could practically hear his voice insisting that the poor models would be tormented with balled-up pieces of paper thrown at them at the very least.

But he said nothing, just stands quickly as everyone begins filing out, chattering about happy hour that night and their summer vacation plans.

“Clarke—” Maya says, but Clarke flashes her a distracted smile as Bellamy disappears into the hall.

“Sorry, Maya. Can we catch up later? I need to do something.”

She doesn’t bother waiting for Maya’s response, and books it.

The halls are already deserted, every single one of the teachers and staff more than ready for two solid months of vacation. It’s a straight shot to Bellamy’s classroom, and she’s hoping he went to grab his bag after the meeting rather than going straight to his truck.

Clarke is in luck; she can see the glow of his classroom lights through the cracks in the curtains drawn across his windows; when she tests the door, it’s open. She doesn’t give herself time to second-guess, and enters immediately. The second she makes it through his door, she locks it.

Bellamy’s standing at his desk, apparently in the middle of tucking his veritable army of tiny centurion figurines into his desk drawers for summer safekeeping. He looks up at the snick of the lock, a dark scowl instantly taking over his face at the sight of her.

“Clarke.” He slams the drawer shut, and starts loading a stack of paperwork into his bag. His movements are jerky, irritated, as if he’s the one with the reason to be pissed. But she’s the one who _deserves_ to be pissed, because he’s suddenly acting like a jerk for no goddamn reason.

They’re not—he’s not her boyfriend, but she thought they were at least friends, and now he’s acting like a total dick, and she doesn’t know _why_ , and it’s a pretty unpleasant thing to realize just how capable he is of hurting her feelings.  

“Bellamy,” she replies. “Just wondering, what the hell’s wrong with you?”

“What’s—are you kidding? You’re kidding, right?”

She frowns at him. “Not really.”

“You—” He cuts himself off, zips his bag shut violently. “I don’t need to do this with you right now. Have a good summer, or whatever.”

When he moves toward the door, she doesn’t get out of his way.

“Move.”

Clarke purses her lips, stares at him. He’s only inches away from her, and she ignores the way her heart starts to pound.

“No.”

He actually fucking _growls_ at her, which is kind of funny but mostly does embarrassing things to her, imagining the way the rumble starting deep in his chest would feel if his mouth were pressed against hers, or maybe somewhere else on her body.

“I’m done with you,” Bellamy says, and fits his hands to her waist. His fingers flex as if he’s about to _lift_ her out of the way or something equally rude, but he stills the second she flattens her hand against his chest.

“You can’t be done with me,” she says, suddenly furious. “If anything, I should be done with _you._ Asshole.”

He gapes at her. “What?”

“You heard me. You can’t just hook up with me for a _month,_ and then suddenly be pissed at _me_ for no good reason—”

“I have good reason,” he snaps. “As you’re well aware of, princess.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but pauses when she sees the tiniest flicker of hurt cross his face. It’s gone almost immediately, replaced by a glare, but she _knows_ she saw it.

She’s kind of been obsessing over him for the past four weeks; she’s gotten pretty good at reading his face.

“I really don’t know what you mean,” she tells him, making an effort to talk in a reasonable voice.

His hands fall away from her waist, and his shoulders fall a little. “Right. That’s what we’re going with, then.”

“Bellamy!” Clarke’s mind is racing, trying to figure out if she’s missed something vitally important, but she’s coming up with nothing. “What the _hell_ are you talking about?”

He meets her eyes, looks at her for a long moment until his brow furrows. “You made yourself pretty clear when you gave that flower to Maya, Clarke.”

“Okay, could you make sense for, like, _one minute_?”

“You’re telling me you don’t know why giving away the flower I left for you would give me the idea you don’t want to do this?”

“…What?”

Bellamy continues, apparently riled up at this point. His hands are waving wildly in the air as he speaks, and his voice is getting deeper with each exasperated word. “Fucking flowers three times a week, and you never said  _anything_ , and I even asked my _mom_ about what different flowers fucking _mean,_ and I figured, okay, maybe you’re not huge on flowers, but I kept trying and we kept hooking up, so things seemed good, and then today you just give it to _Maya—_ ”

“They were for me?” she whispers, and Bellamy stills.

“I left them right outside your fucking door, Clarke.” But he’s not glaring anymore, so that at least is good. He’s just looking at her like she’s nuts. “Since the day after we—since the day after.”

She does remember it, a little coral-colored rose in a bud vase. Charlotte had brought it in for her at the beginning of fifth period, saying it was left in front of her door. There had been at least a dozen of them since, and every time she just passed them on to what she thought was their intended destination.

“I thought it was left for Maya,” Clarke says lamely. “Jasper gets our classrooms confused sometimes.”

Bellamy looks pained. “Jasper never even remembers to take flowers out of the florist wrap. You thought he brought a vase?”

Clarke flushes. “Okay, well. That’s true. But you didn’t say anything!”

“Does this mean that every time I left flowers for you, you gave them away?”

“You didn’t say anything,” she grits out again. “You make out with me in my classroom and then I’m supposed to just _get_ that you’re sending me weird flower messages? What is wrong with you?”

He sets his mouth stubbornly. “It was romantic.”

She opens her mouth to retort, then pauses. “Romantic?”

“Yes.”

“You were trying to romance me?”

“I—” He cuts himself off. “Maybe.”

She stares at him. He’s been the bane of her existence on a professional level for a year now, and then he practically ambushes her into the most intense makeout session of her life. The next day, he fingers her against her door. Awesome, but not really romantic.

Clarke was not expecting _romance_ from Bellamy Blake anytime soon. Hoping, maybe a teeny bit, if she’s really honest. Know thyself and all that. But based on their encounters, she thought she knew what to expect.

A good fuck on top of her desk, maybe. But romance?

“Oh,” she says, very softly. _Oh._

Bellamy fiddles with the strap of his messenger bag and avoids her eyes. “I just thought you might like that kind of thing,” he mutters.

The only thing that seems right to do is to stand on her toes, hold his face in her hands, and kiss him.

So she does.

His mouth is soft with surprise under her own, and Clarke traces the seam of his lips, licking into his mouth until he makes a low noise.

There’s a soft thump as Bellamy lets his bag fall to the ground, and then his hands on splayed across her back, crushing her to him. Her breasts are pressed against his chest, and he just feels so _good_ , warm and firm.

“Sorry,” she pants in between kisses. “About the—flowers.”

She pushes at his shoulders, and he stumbles backwards until he bumps into his desk. “I guess I could’ve left a note,” he mutters, and redirects his attention to her throat. His teeth are nibbling and scraping all up and down the length of her neck, and it’s pretty embarrassing how loudly she’s moaning, and there’s no way he’s not leaving hickeys, but goddamnit, she doesn’t even care. It’s summer anyway, technically.

She’s tugging his shirt out of his trousers and pulling his belt out of the loops before she even catches up with herself; he’s not complaining, but still, she pauses and pulls away to ask.

“This okay?”

“ _Fuck,_ yes. God. Can I—” Bellamy gestures desperately at her own body. She kisses him quickly as she pulls down his zipper and snakes a hand into his boxers.

“Yeah. If you can manage,” she teases as she strokes once, testing him, and he chokes.

Bellamy swears and his hands go to that spot on her waist where they fit just right. In a second, he’s reversed their positions and lifted her up onto the desk.

“Hey!” Clarke complains when she falls back and her hand loses its grip; then her breath catches when he reaches up under her skirt and pulls her panties off in one swift move.

She squeaks and presses her legs together; she can feel the slickness between her thighs already.

At the noise, Bellamy stops. “You good?” He watches her, and his eyes are dark and hot as he waits.

She nods, biting her lip, and he grins and drops to his knees, ducking under her skirt.

“Oh— _Oh…_ ”

Bellamy repositions her legs so they’re draped over his shoulders and continues lapping at her in long, broad strokes.   

She curls her hands around the edges of desk and stares up at the tiled ceiling, the little holes in each square swirling as her eyes nearly cross in response to the way Bellamy moves his tongue. She’s literally dreamed of this, but this is better than the dreams, it’s better than her daydreams, it’s better than anything he’s done to her prior to this moment.

Because it’s really happening, and Bellamy’s really eating her out in the middle of the day, and he was really trying to romance her with little roses and it’s just—really great, okay?

Clarke shivers, but it’s heat rather than cold traveling up her torso and through her limbs, and then the shivers don’t stop, they just get worse as he starts paying special attention to the flesh around her clit, and when he slides a finger into her and presses it upward, that’s it.

She comes back to awareness to the sensation of Bellamy’s forehead pressing against the soft skin of her inner thigh. She can feel his breath hitting her skin, each exhale almost as ragged as hers.

“Bellamy?” she says hoarsely when she can speak somewhat coherently.

“Sorry,” he says, and stands up. Clarke can feel herself go a little red when she sees the shine surrounding his mouth and chin.

“Help me up?” she asks; he gives her a crooked smile and pulls her to a sitting position.

Her legs are still hanging off the edge of his desk and she takes the opportunity to wrap them around him when he looks like he’s going to back away.

“So that was great and all, but is that it?” he blurts out, and Clarke’s brow furrows.

“Uh. I mean, I was kind of planning on having sex with you on top of your desk, too,” she replies. “If you’re cool with that.”

He blinks. “No. Yes. Fuck. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I meant…do you _just_ want to have sex with me on top of my desk? Or maybe do some other stuff, too. Non-sex stuff.” He looks kind of nervous, as if he didn’t just eat her out on his desk in the middle of the day. As if he’s not the man she’s been thinking about for the last month, and dreaming about for months before that. As if he thinks she’ll say _no, but thanks for the orgasms_. “I mean, I figured it’s summer now, and if students see us together it won’t be a huge topic in the lunchroom or whatever, and by the time school starts again nobody would—”

“You did promise me romance,” she says, cutting him off, and god does she like the bewildered look that crosses his face.

God, does she like _him_.

“What?” he asks after a second.

“Romance,” she repeats. “All those roses were wasted on me. And you kind of yelled at me a little bit? I think I _require_ some non-sex romance, actually. Repayment for your lameness.”

Bellamy sputters. “ _You_ were the one who didn’t understand that flowers left in front of someone’s door are generally for the person owning the door! This is at least fifty percent your fault.”

Clarke grins and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Oh, I know that, don’t worry. I fully intend on repaying you for my lameness, too.”

“Oh. Okay, cool,” Bellamy declares, and kisses her.

As promised, they have sex on top of his desk; then they go out for tacos and the new _Jurassic World_ movie.

It's pretty amazing, and Clarke realizes—no matter how great the dream was, the reality is even better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this; let me know your thoughts if you get a chance! 
> 
> (Coral roses symbolize passion, desire. Lavender roses can symbolize royalty, enchantment, and love at first sight.)


	36. Aurora Borealis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From blakesdoitbetter on tumblr: "Bellarke + tattoo artist Bellamy and florist Clarke"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so originally this was supposed to be a 5 headcanons type thing, so I thought it would be cool to write them from alternating POVs. And then it turned into a fic, and I had to FIGHT IT to get it to cooperate because it basically wanted to be 19736794192 words long, so this is the shorter more cooperative version that has the potential for follow-up fics if anybody's interested. :) I hope you enjoy!

**One**

He doesn’t pay much attention when the empty storefront next to his shop is finally leased, other than to absently hope whatever goes in brings some new clients into his place.  _Aurora’s_  is doing fine, but it never hurts to get more business.

But a couple weeks later, coming back from his lunch break, Bellamy absolutely does notice that the next door shop’s new sign has gone up, just to the right of his on the row of shops.

 _Borealis Blooms_ , it reads. He ducks into  _Aurora’s_ , barks at Lincoln and Monroe that he’s going to be a few minutes longer, and makes his way, fuming, next door.

“Are you kidding me?” he demands as he barges into the shop. It’s got that new paint smell, the walls now a calm cream instead of dingy white, and there’s furniture still wrapped in packing plastic clustered in the middle of floor.

There’s no one in there, and for a second Bellamy feels embarrassed about yelling into an empty room, but then a woman pops up from behind the counter.  

She’s covered in paint, her hair is falling out of a sloppy topknot, and the strap of her tank top is sliding down her shoulder.

“Uh,” Bellamy says, and that’s how he meets the girl next door.

* * *

**Two**

“Can I help you?” Clarke asks. She’s sweaty and hot and she’s been crouching behind the counter organizing office supplies long enough that her thighs are trembling and burning in the  _worst_  way.

The good kind of thigh trembling has, sadly, been all too absent from her life since she broke up with Lexa and moved from Arkadia to D.C.

She’s sure she looks like a total mess, and resents the man standing in the middle of her half-ready shop on principle, because he looks crisp and cool in a dark v-neck as if the humidity doesn’t affect him at all.

And damn it  _all_  if the sight of the ink adorning his exposed skin doesn’t get her even more hot and bothered.

“Yeah,” he says, and stalks up to her until all that’s separating them is the narrow expanse of the counter. “What the hell is up with your sign?”

She blinks at him. “My…sign?”

Is he trying to use some weird kind of angry pick-up line on her?

“Borealis Blooms,” he grits out, and Clarke can’t decide if she is or isn’t disappointed that the answer to her question is apparently no.

“You’re one of the guys from the tattoo parlor,” she realizes, because  _duh_.

“Yeah, and you’re the girl who’s ripping off my shop name,” he snaps.

* * *

**Three**

“Excuse me?” the woman says, and Bellamy’s not distracted by her lips when she blows a piece of hair out of her face.

“Aurora borealis?”

“Oh.” She does look a little chagrined, pulling up her tank top strap and fidgeting with it. “I meant to talk to the owner before it went up. I got distracted.”

“Well, talk,” he says.

“Oh, you’re—? I’m—” Her cheeks were already flushed when he came in, but now even her nose turns pink as she blushes. “I didn’t think you’d mind, I guess. I just—I’d wanted to open this place for a long time, and when I was looking for space and saw your shop’s name, it seemed kind of perfect.”

He stares at her.

“Besides,” she says, lifting her chin defiantly. “It’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”

“I own a tattoo parlor,” Bellamy says flatly. “I don’t need a fucking cutesy his-and-hers shopfront thing going on.”

She narrows her eyes. “Well, too bad. I’ve already paid for the sign. And you’re the one who named your tattoo parlor after a  _fairy-tale_ ,” she adds. “If anyone has a cutesy shop name it’s you.”

“It was my mother’s name,” he finds himself blurting out, and—okay, it’s not like it’s a secret, anyone who knows him knows he named the shop after her, not the princess. But usually he just lets strangers and customers think it’s because of the fairy-tale, what with the getting pricked with needles or spindles or whatever.

She’s quiet for a long moment, and he puts on a scowl when he starts to itch under her pensive gaze.

* * *

**Four**

“What?” he asks defensively.

“Nothing,” Clarke replies. “Just—my dad. He was a scientist at UCLA. Studied northern lights.”

She can practically see the fight melt out of him when he registers the way she used past tense too, and so she doesn’t take (much) offense when he says, “I’m not going to convince you to change your shop name, am I?”

She smiles. “Nope. But you’ll see. It’ll be good for both our businesses.”

He sighs heavily and sticks his hand out. “Bellamy Blake. Tattoo artist.”

His hand is warm and dry and big around hers, and Clarke despairs that she’s probably got gross clammy hands from the stupid humidity. “Clarke Griffin. Floral artist.”

“Got any tattoos, Clarke?”

She snorts. “No.” Not yet, at least. “Got any favorite flowers?”

Bellamy shrugs. “The pretty ones.”

“All flowers are pretty,” she says, and he grins for the first time. She nearly goes weak-kneed, but she’s probably just dehydrated—the heat and humidity and all that.

She’s definitely not imagining that grin on his face while she explores the expanse of skin underneath his shirt, hunting for more of his tattoos.

“I don’t think so. I’ve got one guy? He studies flowers, comes in a few times a year to add to his collection. And let me tell you, there are some fucking freaky looking orchids,” Bellamy replies, and she laughs. “I hope you’re not into those.”

* * *

**Five**

“I’m hoping to stick with the more standard stuff in my shop,” Clarke says, eyes still sparkling with laughter. “Though I’m always open to trying something new.”

Bellamy grins at her; how can he not? Sure, her shop name was a somewhat irritating surprise, but he’ll learn to live with it. But Clarke is all pink, flushed skin and mussed blonde hair and there’s a streak of paint on her cheek, and  _fuck_ , he does  _not_  have time for a crush on the girl next door.

He clears his throat and starts to back away. “Anyway. Sorry for barging in, I guess. Good luck getting everything set up.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, following him with her eyes as he awkwardly scoots out of her shop. “Well, thank you. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Probably,” he acknowledges. “Neighbors, you know.”

She gives him a puzzled smile as he lingers in the doorway, watching her. “Okay…good. Nice to meet you, Bellamy.”

“You too, Clarke,” he gets out, and then he forces himself out the door. He snaps a quick picture of the storefront with his phone and slips back into his own shop.

Monroe’s working on a client, but Lincoln’s at his drafting table.

“Where have you been?” he asks. Lincoln’s working on a design for one of their oldest clients, something to complete her second sleeve while looking both unique and as if it belongs with the rest of her pieces.

“Met the new shop owner,” Bellamy replies as he opens his laptop and pulls up  _Aurora’s_  Facebook page. “Yelled at her about the sign.”

“I like it,” Lincoln says. “So does Octavia.”

“Wait, how does Octavia already have an opinion on it? It just went up.”

Lincoln shrugs calmly. “She brought me lunch.”

Bellamy is the littlest bit offended that his baby sister came by the shop and didn’t say hello to him, but then again, he’d probably have been forced to eat some of the food she brought if she had seen him.

He’s more than happy to let Octavia’s boyfriend shoulder that responsibility.

“What was it this time?”

“A sandwich from the deli next to the dojo.” Bellamy knows he’s not imagining the note of relief in Lincoln’s voice.

“Lucky man,” he replies before clicking around a bit more. 

Bellamy goes back and forth for a good five minutes about it before he gives in and posts a new status with the photo of Clarke’s storefront to their Facebook page. Then he forces himself to log out and put all thoughts of the hot blonde florist out of his mind as he prepares for his next appointment.

_Aurora’s Tattoos welcomes Borealis Blooms to the neighborhood._

* * *

He’s the only one left in the shop when Clarke slips in the door later that night, just after closing. Bellamy only has a second to see that her face is scrubbed clean of paint, and that her stupid tank top is slipping off her shoulder  _still_ , and that she’s got a smile on her face that’s kind of nervous and kind of beautiful and maybe just a little bit wicked.

_Calm the fuck down, Blake,_  he thinks. Just because the florist is pretty and kind of clever with the stupid shop name thing doesn’t mean he should be thinking about throwing her across his drafting table and making out or anything like that, and—

“So, I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” she says, and  _goddamnit_ , he’s doomed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not as long as my previous few, but I hope it still brought you some entertainment! Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts if you get a chance!


	37. Cooking Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From deargodtomanyfandoms on tumblr: "teacher/student AU"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, because I’ve worked as a teaching assistant and instructor, I’m terrified of academic high school/college teacher/student relationships. So I went a different route and combined this with the awful au: 
> 
> “I teach a cooking class and you’re the worst student I’ve ever had.” 
> 
> BIG THANKS to hooksandheroics for her help with Bellamy’s lesson plan, and I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> ALSO I would like to thank everyone for their comments on the last chapter, Aurora Borealis. I'm so happy you all liked it so much, and please know that I've made it a fic of its own and added the next installment!

Bellamy can tell the blonde is trying. Really, she’s got these little frowny lines wrinkling up her forehead, and her bottom lip is swollen and red from how much she’s been nibbling on it. She goes between squinting at the print-out he gave all the students and staring at the mess in front of her. 

Seriously, she looks like Hermione Granger in that one scene in the  _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ movie _,_ the one where her hair’s about twice as big as her head and she’s stirring her cauldron frantically as she tries to make that potion. And yes, he’s aware that if his sister knew he made that comparison, she would make fun of him for the rest of his life, but she already makes fun of him constantly. It’s not like anything would change.

But the blonde is acting like it’s a dangerous magical potion she’s dealing with, not a pretty basic Filipino recipe. At one point, he’s pretty sure he catches her turning the print-out upside down, as if that will somehow help her. 

Another time, when he’s worked his way through the more competent students and is closer to her, he sees her huff and dig through the purse on the seat next to her until she pulls out a pair of big black-rimmed glasses that she shoves onto her face.

It seems to help her stop squinting at the recipe so much, but then steam from the stove just starts fogging up the lenses.

For all her effort, she is, without a doubt, the worst student he’s ever had.

“How are you doing over here?” he asks when he finally is able to get to her work station, and tries not to let his skepticism bleed into his voice.

“I hate my entire life,” she replies, and stabs viciously into her pan with her wooden spoon. “What am I even doing? Why am I here? Who am I, really?”

He stares at her. Then, slowly, he begins to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” she grumps, though he can see the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and she pokes a piece of chicken with her spoon. “I’m having a crisis here.”

A quick glance around the classroom proves that everyone else is doing just fine with the chicken adobo.

“Well—what’s your name?” he asks.

“Clarke,” she grumbles. 

“Bellamy. Well, Clarke, for starters, you’ve got your burner ridiculously hot.” He turns the knob, peering at the flame until it’s at a more suitable height. 

“How was I supposed to know that?” she says. 

He smiles. “It’s on the print-out, and I said it at the beginning of the class.”

“ _No_ , I mean—what does that even  _mean_? Low, medium, high, medium-well, rare—it’s just  _fire._ How the hell am I supposed to know what medium-well fire looks like?”

“Uh, well, there’s no such thing as medium-well fire?  _Heat_ ,” he corrects himself. “There are medium-well steaks or whatever, but cooking heat is on a spectrum between low and high. Think of it like a compass, how a direction like north-east is between north and east. Medium-high, for example, is between medium and high heat.” 

She gives him a look, and tosses laurel leaves into the pan before he can stop her. “You sound like a teacher. Are you a teacher?”

Bellamy fishes a pair of tongs out of the drawer next to her station and plucks the leaves back out of the pan. “Well, considering I’m teaching the cooking class you’re currently failing, yeah, I think it’s safe to say I’m a teacher.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “That’s not what I meant, I’m not  _failing,_ and why are you taking those out?”

“Because they’re not supposed to go in until the chicken is beginning to get tender,” he says, willing himself to remain patient. “And I teach middle school social studies.” Usually he doesn’t mind the cooking classes his sister guilted him into teaching at the community center when she started working for the city’s Parks and Recreation department—actually, he tends to look forward to it after being with teens all week long. Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds can only follow directions so well for so long.

But Clarke is giving them a run for their money right now, apparently entirely unable to read a simple recipe or comprehend the short overview he’d given at the beginning of the class.

“They’re tender!” she protests. “I made sure.” As if to prove her point, she jabs at a piece of the raw chicken with her spoon.

“Oh my god,” he says. “How have you not starved to death?”

“Hey!” 

“This is literally the easiest dish I ever teach. Do you survive entirely on takeout? Or the kindness of strangers?” he wonders.

“I’m not paying you to make fun of my cooking skills,” Clarke says, frowning.

“First of all, you have no cooking skills. I don’t know what you have but skill is not it. And second, you’re not paying me at all? I volunteer. All ten of the dollars you paid for this class go back into the community center, so.”

Her shoulders slump, and she sighs. 

“Look,” Bellamy says. “Just—don’t touch it, alright? I’ve got to make the rounds, but I’ll come back and try to help you some more.”

“Fine,” she grumbles, exchanging her spoon for a laurel leaf she starts half-heartedly shredding into little pieces. 

Bellamy turns down the heat to almost nothing so the chicken doesn’t burn or maybe spontaneously combust while he’s gone.

It doesn’t take long; most people are doing exactly as the print-out says and doing just fine. There are a couple regulars he talks to for a little longer; Bellamy encourages Mrs. Kane to add a little more garlic, tells Jasper to lay off the pepper unless he wants his chicken adobo to be inedible, makes Maya blush when he teases her about Jasper being too distracted by her presence to pay attention to the recipe. 

By the time he gets back to Clarke, most of the class has reached the simmering period. 

“Great, everybody,” he calls, and all eyes turn to him. “At this point, you’d typically start your rice if you haven’t already; when you try this at home, make sure to give yourself enough time. Now, while your chicken adobo finishes simmering, go ahead and check out the covered dishes the front. There’s plenty of the finished product for you all to try as you wait.”  

“Alright, I’m back,” Bellamy says while the other students file up to the front, chatter filling the room. He turns up the heat under the pan. 

“Hi.”

“Now that you’re chicken’s ready—see the way it looks, instead of still looking kind of raw?—you’re going to add your other ingredients,” Bellamy says. 

Clarke bites her lip, glances between him and the ingredients grouped on her workspace. She reaches hesitantly for the vinegar, but checks his face before she actually touches it. 

Goddamnit, she’s cute. Not his typical type, but hey, he’s got eyes. And they can see clearly that his worst cooking student in the history of…ever is pretty much adorable.  

She’s still waiting for his approval, Bellamy realizes, so he nods encouragingly. “Yup. That, and all the other stuff except for the seven-up.” 

It all goes well, Bellamy talking her through each ingredient like his mother had talked him through them when he was young, like Aurora had told him his father taught her before he died. It’s pretty charming, actually, to see the way her face lights up when the smell from the pan starts getting better, and the cooking food starts looking somewhat recognizable. 

And then, of course, when she tries to measure out a cup of soy sauce, the little stopper that keeps too much from pouring out all at once pops out of place and falls into the pan, along with about three times more soy sauce than the dish calls for.

She yelps as the liquid from the pan splashes up, splattering her hands and arms. 

Bellamy immediately turns off the stove, takes the now-mostly-empty soy sauce bottle from her hands and sets it on the counter, and grabs her shoulders, turning her toward him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, looking her up and down. She had pushed the sleeves of her striped top up, but there’s soy sauce soaking into them where they bunch around her elbows. Her forearms and hands are flecked with the stuff, and Bellamy carefully takes hold of her fingers, turning her hands this way and that to check for burns. 

“That was  _not_  my fault,” Clarke declares, apparently unhurt. “I was kicking ass. Adobo ass. The stupid soy sauce ruined everything.” 

“You definitely don’t have the best luck,” Bellamy agrees, satisfied that she wasn’t burned. He snags a towel, runs it under the faucet, and then starts cleaning her arms.

Until she clears her throat pointedly, he doesn’t realize he’s cleaning her hands like he cleaned Octavia’s face and limbs when she was a toddler and had just experienced cake for the first time.

“I think I’m good,” she says, but when he jerks his head up to meet her gaze, she’s smiling, her cheeks and nose tinted the faintest pink. His stomach does a weird trembly thing that he decides to ignore as he grins back. 

“Okay. Oh, just one more,” he notices, and wipes at a spot just below her elbow. It doesn’t come off, so he wipes a few more times until Clarke starts to laugh, and he realizes he’s been trying to wipe off a dark mole, like the one above her lip. 

Not that he’s been noticing her lips, or anything.

“Oh,” he says, and lets go of her. “That’s…that’s permanent.”

“Yup.” Her smiles dims when she looks at her pan, the dark brown mess of soy-covered chicken slowly cooling on the stove. “Damn it.” 

“Tell you what, I’ll sneak you into the next class for free,” Bellamy finds himself offering. “I’m teaching sinigang.” 

On second thought, that sounds like a terrible idea; chicken adobo is child’s play compared to the flavor balancing act that sinigang requires. But he’s already offered, and it wouldn’t be so bad to see her again.

“No, that’s okay,” she sighs. “I wanted to learn chicken adobo.”

She looks so defeated. “Why?” he asks, glancing over to check on the rest of class. They’re still munching away happily on the chicken adobo he’d prepared earlier, and he can see Maya grinning at Jasper as he gestures broadly with his plastic fork. “Any particular reason?”

“I…” Clarke shoves a hand through her hair, still wild and curly from the heat of the stove. “It was my dad’s favorite. We used to go to Roline’s, on Washington Street? Before it closed.”

“I remember Roline’s,” Bellamy says. “Their chicken adobo sucked.”

That startles a laugh out of Clarke even as she flicks him in the chest. “Hey, I have fond memories of that food!”

He looks at her skeptically. 

“Okay, it wasn’t the  _best_ , but my dad loved it. His birthday is this weekend, and I wanted to make it for my mom and me,” Clarke explains, glancing down at the counter and tracing her fingers over the print-out. The piece of paper is splattered with soy sauce too, and is barely legible now. “I tried googling recipes, but when I tried to make it on my own I just set things on fire.”

“Seriously,” says Bellamy, wanting to coax another smile out of her. “How do you survive?”

It works, kind of; she’s smiling, but she’s wrinkling her nose at him in offense. “Hey, it’s only stupid complex recipes that trip me up, okay? I can manage jarred pasta sauce and noodles.  _And_  I’ll have you know I’m a whiz with the oven. Baked meatballs? No problem. Authentic Italian-style pizza? I’ve got you covered. Anything baked, I’m your girl.” 

“You’re my girl, huh? I’ll believe it when I see it,” he says. “Or taste it.”

Clarke scowls and begins emptying her pan into the garbage can. “This sucks,” she sighs. “I guess I’ll just try it at home again.”

“For the sake of humankind, just don’t. Don’t try to make this. You were created to do a lot of things probably, but making this dish is not one of them.”

Clarke huffs and sets her pan in the sink. “That’s rude.”

“That’s the truth,” Bellamy counters. “Listen, I know this is important to you, but I can’t in good conscience set you free into the cooking world. If you try to make this for your mom, you will probably burn down your kitchen and/or die.”

She crosses her arms, sets her mouth stubbornly. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

Bellamy sighs. “I mean. I guess I could make it for you?”

Clarke eyes him. 

“This isn’t some creepy attempt to find out where you live,” he promises. Really, he should just shut up. God knows he has more than enough to do in his everyday life; he doesn’t need to add ‘become Clarke’s personal chef’ to his to-do list. “I can make it and meet you somewhere, hand it off.”

“Why?”

“Uh,” he says. “So you don’t have to tell a virtual stranger where you live?”

“No, I mean, why are you offering to cook for me?” Clarke asks, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “Do you offer food services to all of your cooking class students?”

“Nah,” he replies, “only the pretty ones.”

She stares at him. 

“Oh god. Pretty  _awful_ ones,” he says, and then wants to crawl into a hole because how is that better than awkwardly hitting on her? “I—I’m starting over with this. No, I don’t offer food services, but I wouldn’t mind helping you out.”

“So you don’t think I’m pretty?”

He stares at her helplessly.

She stares back for a couple seconds, then dissolves into giggles. “Your  _face_ , oh my god. You’d think I’d asked you where babies come from or something.” 

“I don’t want to answer that either,” Bellamy says immediately.

“It’s okay, Bellamy,” she says, patting his arm. “I already know all about the stork and the cabbage leaf.” 

“Do you want my help or not?” He really should hope she says no, because he’s got a huge pile of grading at home, and Marcus guilted him into agreeing to teach summer school so he needs to come up with three and a half weeks worth of lesson plans, and Miller asked if they could hang out that weekend, probably so they can play video games while he whines about his big, fat crush on Monty. Bellamy should hope she says no, but instead he finds himself hoping that she says—

“Yes. Please.”

“Oh. Okay.” He gets a little distracted by the inky lines of her lashes behind her glasses when she lowers her eyes and smiles a little. “Do you—”

“Bellamy!” Maya calls. “Is…is it supposed to be doing this?” 

Bellamy looks over to where Maya’s standing; she returned to her station at some point, and her pan is letting off an alarming amount of steam. 

“Shit,” he says.

“You’d better take care of that,” Clarke says. He hazards a look at her, and she raises an eyebrow and makes a shooing motion. “Go!”

“Okay,” he says, then takes off for Maya’s station, calling along the way, “Alright everybody, final stages! Back to your posts!”

He leads everybody through the final addition and a much shorter simmering period, then congratulates them all on completing their dish. All except Clarke, who pulled a stool over to her station and is sitting on it, swinging her legs as she alternates between squinting at her soy-sauced print-out and tapping at her phone. 

She’s still waiting when everybody has packaged up their finished food and cleaned their stations, and he helps Mrs. Kane to the door before returning to Clarke. 

“You’re still here.” 

“Did you already change your mind?” she asks, giving him a crooked smile. “It’s okay if you did.”

“No, I’d like you,” he says; at her stare, he scrambles to fix his fumbling mistake. “I’d like to  _help_  you. Fuck.”

He can tell she’s biting her cheek, probably to keep from laughing at him. He sighs. 

“Thank you,” she says in a composed voice, then scoots over so she’s right next to him, leaning against him as she holds out her phone for them to look at together. “I tried to recreate the grocery list from the print-out. Does it look right?”

Bellamy clears his throat, tries to ignore the fact that he can feel her warmth through his shirt. God, is that creepy? Is he a creep? He forces himself to scan the list. “It looks good,” he confirms. “But I was just going to pick everything up on my way home, so…”

She draws away, looking outraged; he pretends he doesn’t miss the feel of her leaning on him, and again wonders if he’s a creep. “Oh, no. You’re not going to do me this huge favor  _and_ pay for the ingredients,” she says, poking him. 

He looks down at where her finger had jabbed him, bemused. 

“I’m paying,” she announces. “In fact, I should be paying you extra to actually cook it.”

Now Bellamy shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I’m not your employee, I offered to do it.”

Clarke wrinkles her nose. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine.”_

“Are you done?”

She considers. “Yeah. Saturday okay for you?”

Bellamy thinks about summer school, only a week and a half away. “Yeah, Saturday’s fine.”

* * *

Clarke follows him to the market half a mile away, and he manages to get through shopping with a minimum of creepy thoughts about how, even with her shirt covered in soy sauce, she still smells good when she puts a hand on his shoulder for balance so she can stand on her tiptoes to reach a bag of cake flour. 

Or about how he weirdly finds it cute that she  _tries_ to reach the cake flour, and fails, and her face is an oddly adorable mix of grumpy and grateful when he easily grabs it off the shelf and hands it to her. 

Or about how, after he’s loaded the ingredients he needs to make her chicken adobo into his car, and she’s loaded the insane number of groceries she bought for herself into her own, she takes his phone, enters her number, and hands it back to him with a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek, and it’s awesome. 

* * *

The next day is Friday, and his students are predictably rowdy at the prospect of the weekend and of next week being the last week of the school year, and he’s sufficiently distracted from Clarke as he tries to keep them from standing on desks while stuffing some last minute knowledge in their brains. He even manages to get most of his grading done that night, and gets started on summer school planning the next morning until he has to shower and get started on the food.

At this point in his life, he could make the dish in his sleep, but he finds himself concentrating intensely, making sure every measurement is perfect, and each flavor is balanced. When it’s almost done, he texts Clarke.

_almost ready. where do you want me to meet you?_

After only a few seconds, he can see her start typing a response.  _can u pls pls pls bring it to 44 A Street? i’m running a little late_   _:O_

 _that’s fine,_ he texts back.  _were you able to make the rice?_

 _the rice is why i’m running late_ , she replies, and he snorts.  _but i found my rice cooker now!!! rice is cooking, mom will be here soon_

_how many pots of rice did you ruin before you found your rice cooker to make it for you?_

_i resent that implication,_ she texts. 

Then,  _two,_ and a little emoji with its tongue sticking out. 

 _you SURE you’ve got the rice handled?_ he asks. 

_shut up._

* * *

The actual delivery goes quickly; he plugs Clarke’s address into the GPS in his phone and pulls up in front of a nice little house that makes him wonder what she does for a living. 

She answers the door in a pretty dress that swishes around her knees, with an apron decorated with lemons tied around her waist; there’s a dash of flour on one cheek. 

“Hi!” she says breathlessly, then her eyes zero in on the tupperware in his hands. “Oh my god, I love you. You’re amazing.” 

“Hi,” he says back, grinning. Something starts beeping back in the house, and her eyes widen.

“Come in, come in,” she says, gesturing him through door. Once she closes it, she takes off at a run for what he assumes is the kitchen. 

Bellamy follows hesitantly, taking in the woven rug just inside the door, the paintings decorating her walls. He pauses and squints at the bottom of one, a landscape, and realizes the signature says it’s Clarke’s painting. All of them are. 

And they’re  _good_. 

He finds the kitchen and discovers that Clarke’s set the table in the attached dining nook already; it’s pristine and pretty, and the kitchen is a disaster. She’s just finished laying a towel over something she pulled out of the oven, and there’s flour and who knows what else all over the place. 

“Wow,” he says. 

“Um, would you mind helping me out?” Clarke asks sheepishly. “I want to get this cleaned up before my mom arrives, and I still haven’t made the drinks.” 

What’s one more favor? he thinks, and that’s how he finds himself reheating the chicken adobo on her stove, then plating it along with rice as Clarke dances around him with a damp cloth, wiping down counters and cupboards.

Bellamy’s just set the pan, still mostly full, back on the stove when he hears, “Clarke?”

Clarke yelps and whirls around; he follows her gaze to see an older woman with brown hair standing in the entrance to the hallway. “Mom, hi!” Clarke says. 

“Hi, honey,” she replies, eyeing Bellamy as he remains standing awkwardly by the stove. “Who’s this?”

Before Clarke can reply, he offers his hand. “Bellamy Blake. I’m just the chef.”

“Abby Griffin,” she replies, shaking his hand firmly. “The chef?”

“Chicken adobo,” Clarke says softly, and Abby looks at the table, her face softening in surprise. 

“Clarke,” she says, and Bellamy’s appalled to see Clarke’s mother tearing up. 

“Hey, none of that,” Clarke commands, squeezing Abby in a quick hug. “It’s supposed to be a nice surprise.”

“It is,” Abby says. “It’s a lovely surprise, Clarke.” Then she turns to him. “And you cooked?”

He nods. “It was no big deal.”

“It was a very big deal,” Clarke counters. “I tried to practice making it and I nearly burnt the kitchen down. I really owe you.”

Bellamy rubs the back of his neck and clears his throat. “It’s alright. Anyway, I’m going to take off,” he says, gesturing at the set table. “Have a wonderful evening, ladies.“

He’s not bothered that he wasn’t asked to stay; even if he had been asked, he would have declined and let Clarke and her mother visit by themselves. Clarke had said it was her father’s favorite meal, and his birthday, and Bellamy’s familiar enough with talking around a family member’s absence to realize that her father must have passed away. 

“Thank you,” Abby says, a small smile on her face as she looks over the food. “This is lovely.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, nodding goodbye, and he slips into the hallway.

“Wait!” Clarke says, following, and he feels her hand on his arm. When he turns to look at her, her lips are on his before he can ask what she needs. She pauses and then pulls away in a manner that tells him it was an accident, she was aiming for his cheek in that way she does. But she just smiles at him, and he can’t stop himself from brushing the flour off her cheek carefully. 

“Thank you,” Clarke says. “So much, Bellamy.”

“It was my pleasure,” he tells her, and leaves before he kisses her again. 

* * *

He’s just getting out of the shower and starting to get ready for bed the next night—okay, it’s only eight at night, but he’s a school teacher, okay, he has to get up at the ass crack of dawn—when his doorbell rings. He pauses in the middle of brushing his teeth, then shrugs and keeps brushing; then there’s a loud series of knocks.

Bellamy grumbles as he trudges to the door, clad in a pair of his oldest sweats with a towel around his neck so his hair will stop dripping down his back. 

Clarke’s standing on his welcome mat, dressed in another flowy dress that ripples in the breezy evening air.

He yanks the toothbrush out of his mouth and puts it behind his back like that will make him look like less of an idiot. 

“Clarke! What are you doing here?” he says, words garbled with foam.

She looks down at the tupperware in her hands, then back at him. “You labeled your tupperware? ‘B. Blake, 101 Ark Street, Apartment 47.’ I thought it was a very unsubtle hint. That, or you’re secretly a suburban mom.”

“Ah…” he says, and Clarke’s cheeks glow pink. 

“You’re a suburban mom, aren’t you?”

“I, uh.” He holds up a finger, darts into his kitchen so he can spit into his sink and ditch the toothbrush. He’s back in seconds. “Um. If you don’t label your dishes, you never get them back from staff potlucks,” he says lamely, feeling the heat in his own cheeks.  

“Oh. Then I’m going to say that I obviously knew that, and I’m just here to return your dishes and give you thank you cupcakes.”

“Well, I’d never say no to thank you cupcakes,” Bellamy says, and holds the door open for her to come in. 

It’s only a little weird, seeing Clarke in his apartment, looking around curiously. She finds the kitchen (it’s not hard, given it’s immediately to the right of his front door) and instantly makes herself at home, hopping up on the counter and swinging her legs so her feet hit his lower cabinets with gentle thuds. 

She sets the tupperware in her lap and tries to pry the lid off, but it’s being stubborn. 

“Here, let me do it,” Bellamy offers. “I’m used to its temper tantrums.” 

He steps forward to take it from her, and suddenly realizes he’s basically standing in the cradle of her legs. He clears his throat, hurriedly looking down at the container, and pulls off the lid. 

Clarke’s doing that thing again where she bites her cheek so she doesn’t laugh at him. He would be offended except he’d probably be laughing at himself right now, too.

Then he looks at the cupcakes. “Oh my god, is that homemade cream cheese frosting?”

“I like how you can recognize it on sight,” Clarke muses. “Did I choose well?”

“And they’re chocolate?” he guesses, though it’s hard to tell through the cupcake liners decorated with jack-o-lanterns. 

“Yes, from scratch, and ignore the pumpkins. I realized too late that they were all I had left.”

Bellamy can’t actually remember the last time he had completely homemade chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Probably his twenty-first birthday, right before his mother got sick. 

“Are you going to stare at them or eat them?” Clarke wants to know, and he remembers just who made these delicious-looking pastries. 

She rolls her eyes at the wary look at the crosses his face. “Trust me. This is not going to be like the chicken adobo.”

“Okay,” Bellamy says slowly, and Clarke takes back the tupperware, holding it on her lap so he can pick a cupcake and peel off the liner.

He eyes her as he takes a small bite, and she watches expectantly. The flavors sit on his tongue.

He stares at her.

She smirks at him. 

“Holy shit,” he says. “That’s good.”

“I know.”

“Like,  _really_ good,” he repeats.

“I told you—baked goods, I’m your girl.”

“My girl, huh?” he repeats. “I mean, if everything you bake is this good, I might have to take you up on that.” He doesn’t really mean it, until he says it and realizes that he kind of does. Clarke is smart, and cute, and looks adorable when she’s frazzled and her hair’s big and she’s wearing her glasses, and he wouldn’t mind, you know. Keeping her. If she wanted to keep him. Her habit of kissing him on the cheek is a major selling point, too. 

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I  _know_ that everything I bake is this good. I guess you’ll just have to stick around and find out for yourself.” 

“I’ll check my calendar,” he says, licking a dollop of frosting of the cupcake and grinning at her. “See if I can pencil you in—”

She sets the tupperware on the counter next to her, grabs the towel he still has around his neck, and uses it to pull him down into a kiss. 

This one’s definitely meant for his lips, and she tastes like sugar. 

* * *

The next time he sees Abby Griffin, he’s infinitely more nervous.

Clarke is taking way too much amusement from his panic. “Why are you freaking out?" she asks him when her mother's in the bathroom. "She’s already met you.”

“Yeah, well, the last time we met I didn’t know what her daughter looked like naked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this beast of a oneshot! Let me know your thoughts!


	38. Virtue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From only-judy-can-judge-moi on tumblr: "living in a society where their love is taboo au”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Societal taboo associated with class differences is about as angsty as I can handle, and also I require a happy ending, so...
> 
> A Regency Era AU.
> 
> (Also, if you were interested in an expansion of Aurora Borealis, please know it's now its own multichapter fic! Check out my profile to read the newest installments, and thanks so much for your support!)

Bellamy never wanted to be this kind of man. He’s decent, honorable, as respectable a man as his fortune—or lack thereof—allows him to be. 

When his parents had passed, he’d assumed guardianship of his younger sister and done his best to provide her with a happy, if not wealthy, upbringing and a stable home while he took work as a clerk. 

When Lincoln Woods had proposed to Octavia, Bellamy had made sure that she was truly fond of Mr. Woods—he couldn’t bear the thought of his baby sister trapped in a loveless marriage, though Mr. Woods didn’t care that Octavia had no dowry to speak of and he had offered to settle an incredible amount of money on her. 

And once his sister was happily married, he’d had nothing to hold him to the ugly little flat in London where he lived alone, so he had saved his money and sold all of his keepsakes but the tiny, poorly-executed portrait of his mother. With nearly all the money to his name, he’d purchased a commission in the army, with the hope that he’d rise in the ranks and become something more than a lowly clerk.

And he  _has_ made something more of himself. He’s a Captain now, with years at war behind him. Octavia tells him she’s proud, and her oldest son is named Blake, and all of that reminds him of the good, decent man he’s supposed to be.

Instead, he’s the vile sort of man who meets with ladies in the dark of night, when they should be tucked away in their bedrooms, virtue safe from him.

“Stop that,” Miss Clarke Griffin of Derbyshire demands, pulling her lips away from his neck. She must have felt him tense. “You were doing so well, too.”

He realizes his hands are creasing her dress irreparably with the painfully-tight grasp he has on her hips through the cloth, and he tries to pull away. Instead, his hands move up to her waist, then around to her back as he pulls her closer.

He can feel the lines of her stays through her dress and the thin fabric of his shirt—she’s already shoved his redcoat off his shoulders, and pulled the tails of his shirt from his breeches.

“Better,” Clarke says. 

“We shouldn’t do this, Miss Griffin,” he says, voice strangled, even as he aches to never let her go. This is the third night they’ve met like this, and he hasn’t been able to make himself let go yet.

“I don’t answer to that name,” she says idly, and presses a dry kiss to the underside of his jaw.

“ _Clarke_ ,” he rasps out, and she moans when he grinds involuntarily against her. 

He stills with a massive force of will. 

“Clarke,” he says, quietly. They’re in the pretty little wilderness beyond her house’s garden, but servants are light sleepers, and the slightest disturbance could lead to Clarke’s reputation being ruined. By him. 

“This feels wrong,” he says lowly. It feels  _right_ , holding her in his arms and smelling the sweet scent of the rosewater clinging to her skin, feeling the soft press of her breasts against his chest and her full hips beneath his fingers as he imagines what it would be like to  _be_ with her. But it feels wrong, too, knowing that the only way he’s able to be with her is to sneak around in the dark of night, because he’s an orphaned man with nothing but his army title to his name, and she’s the only child of the most wealthy man in Derbyshire. “If anyone were to catch you out here with me, your virtue would be ruined.” 

He’s puzzled when she smiles nervously. “Not an issue.”

He blinks. “You’ve—you’ve been compromised?” Bellamy’s torn between the desire to know who did it, so he can challenge them to a duel and watch them bleed out, and the fear that Clarke was hurt, forced. Neither situation would change his feelings for her, but he wonders for a second if that’s why she wants him—if she’s been compromised, and a hasty relationship with him would be the best way to cover up any…consequences.

Bellamy feels sick.

Then she says, “Not in the traditional sense.”

“…What?”

He sees her square her shoulders. “In my opinion, my virtue has been thoroughly, ah, taken care of. But I haven’t—it wasn’t—” Clarke stumbles over the words, and Bellamy just grows more and more confused.

“It wasn’t what, Clarke?”

“It wasn’t a man,” she blurts out, and a blush creeps up her neck to her cheeks as she waits for him to respond. 

“Oh.” Eventually he manages to find his words again. “Um, who—?”

“My companion,” she replies hesitantly.

“Miss Reyes?” he says, picturing the lovely dark-haired woman. She’s a few of years older than Clarke’s twenty-two.  

Clarke nods, gaze defiant. He’s not sure how to respond, or how she’s expecting him to respond, but mostly he’s just relieved that she’s not meeting with him, kissing him, because she’s with child and desperate.

He’s not sure what it says about his character that even if that  _had_ been the case, he would have done whatever she asked of him.

But instead, she’s telling him she’s been intimate with another woman. 

“You two still seem…friends,” he says carefully. They often walk to town, arm-in-arm, laughing brightly with their heads close together. It had actually been the first thing that Bellamy noticed about Clarke, well before he officially met her at the ball the Griffins invited all the militia to—that she laughed so freely, instead of in careful, sweet giggles like most ladies of her station. 

She searches his face, for what he’s not sure. Bellamy wonders if she’s worried she shocked him, but, well, he’d caught Octavia kissing Harper Reist more than once when she was younger.

But then she seems to relax. “We are still friends. She’s my  _best_  friend,” Clarke says, voice fond. “And when Lieutenant Wick asked to court her, I could tell she liked him, and that he made her happy, so I told her she should say yes.”

“So you’re not still…” he trails off, and this time she looks annoyed. 

“You think I’d be here like this, with  _you_ , if I were in love with Raven?” she demands as she pulls away and starts futilely trying to fix the damage he’d done to her gown. 

“What? No!” he says, reaching for her. She evades his grasp, looking at him suspiciously. “Please, Clarke. I…I hold you in the—the very  _highest_  regard.”

“Even though I no longer have my virtue, and I think virtue is a stupid concept in general?”

A reluctant smile tugs at his lips. “Even then. Especially then.”

“Good,” she says in satisfaction, and draws him down into a long, wet kiss that leaves him dizzy and wanting. 

Bellamy can feel the long line of tiny buttons down the back of her dress, knows that he could just grasp the fabric and  _tear—_

Instead, he tears his mouth from hers. “Clarke,” he pants. “Really. You should return to your room.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Your family _—_ ” he tries, yet again. 

“You speak of regard. But do you love me?” she asks. He sputters wildly, because he didn’t think that families barely below true nobility bothered themselves with  _love,_ at least as anything more important than a slightly unfashionable peculiarity that entices the poor into matrimony. 

He knows he loves her, but he can’t imagine why she would care to know.

“Do you  _love_ me, Bellamy?” she asks, carelessly dropping his given name from her pink, swollen lips. 

“Yes,” he says helplessly. “Yes, I do, I love you. But what does that matter?” he asks as she lets out a little satisfied  _hmmph_ and returns to marking his skin with her mouth.

“It’s all that matters,” she says, and he has to muffle a groan when she threads her fingers through his hair and tugs gently. “I love you, too.”

“I’m just an officer,” he says feebly, even as his heart soars at her words. “I have no fortune, no home, no connections. I can’t offer you anything like you deserve.” 

“I can’t speak about what I deserve,” she says, “but I can speak about what I want. And Bellamy?  _All_ I want is you.”

“You know your parents wouldn’t approve.” 

She shrugs irritably. “Maybe not. But they’d come around to it, you know they would. My father just wants to see me happy, and he likes you. And my mother.” Clarke pauses, toying with the collar of his shirt. “Well, I’ve never much cared for her opinion.”

That much is true, at least. In the weeks that followed their introduction, he’d learned that Miss Clarke Griffin was a cultured beauty, speaking half a dozen languages, reading voraciously, painting and sketching with the skill of a master.

He also learned, in quick, stolen moments on the grounds of her estate or in whispered words whenever he encountered her in the village, that she prefers Greek and Latin to French and Italian because of their usefulness in science, and that she prefers to practice drawing bodily anatomy over sketching flowers, and that her proclivities cause her mother to despair while her father turns a blind eye to it all.

“We’re going to do it right,” she assures him. “Tomorrow, we’ll speak to my parents.”

“And if they say no?” he counters, because of course they will. In what world would it be acceptable for a woman like Clarke to marry a man like him? 

She grins wickedly, and that’s the only warning he has before she palms him through his breeches, making him choke.

“Then I’ll tell them I  _must_ marry you,” she replies, hand moving against him in wonderful and terrible ways. “It’s a matter of compromised virtue.”

“I thought you considered your virtue already taken care of,” he manages to get out.

“Who says I was talking about mine?” 

* * *

Mrs. Griffin looks like she’s tasted a lemon, Mr. Griffin looks as though he’s convinced this is all a dream, and Miss Reyes looks positively delighted as Clarke primly details to her parents exactly how thoroughly she compromised Captain Bellamy Blake, and how the only decent thing to do would be to marry.

(They’re wed within a fortnight.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't my normal type of AU, but I hope you enjoyed! I had a lot of fun with this one.


	39. Pretense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From lydiahstilinski on tumblr: “my ex just invited me to their wedding and I need you to be my date so it doesn't look like I've spent the last few years failing to get over them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's taking me longer these days to come out with new fics, but I really appreciate your patience with me! I'm moving this month, and still job-searching, but hopefully things will settle down in the next month or so. Thanks so everyone who still reads, and I hope you enjoy!

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Double please?”

“ _No_.” 

“Please-that’s-held-to-an-unreasonable-standard-of-beauty?”

“What? No.” A pause. “Though I appreciate your take on  _pretty please_.” 

Clarke groans. “Bellamy!” 

“Clarke!” he mimics—poorly, in her opinion. “Just don’t go.”

“That would be even worse than going alone!” Clarke exclaims. “Because then Lexa would think I’m too in love with her to watch her get married to someone else, which is wrong, so I need to go and you need to go with me.”

Bellamy makes a disgusted noise, staring determinedly at his book. 

“I’m going to be the world’s biggest loser,” she insists. “I’ll be forever known as the pathetic ex who’s doomed to never find love because she’s pining over a taken woman. Do you want that? To be best friends with someone who’s a known pathetic ex?”

Bellamy shoves his reading glasses up his nose, licks his finger and deliberately turns the page of his book. “How do you think logic works, exactly? I already know you’re pathetic, and you’re my best friend anyway,” he points out.

Clarke pauses. “Aww.” She pats his chest. “I think you’re pathetic too.”

* * *

He snorts, and she continues. “Really, though. I don’t want to do this alone, Bellamy.”

He ignores her, but she can see that little muscle ticking anxiously in his jaw. Clarke wiggles closer on the couch, tucks herself into his side so close that he’s forced to abandon his book with a huff. He has to wrench his arm from where she pinned it between them, and drapes it around her back. 

“Please?” she asks, one more time, but she already knows she has him.

He’s kind of a sucker for her. 

Bellamy lets out a huge, dramatic, gusty sigh. “ _Fine_. But I’m not doing this sober; you’re designated driver.”

“I’ll pay for our cab,” she counters, because one, there’s going to be an open bar, and two, there’s no way in hell she’s suffering through her ex’s wedding without alcohol. “You have to wear a suit.”

“ _Fuck._  You have to wear a dress,” he replies. “That one with the weird back.”

Clarke rests her cheek on his arm, fighting a grin. He’d tried to hide how much he liked her in that dress when she’d worn it to Octavia’s graduation party, but though he tried to mask his fascination by poking her periodically through the gaps in the straps spanning across her back, she’d caught him zoning out, eyes on her essentially bare skin, more than once.

“Sure. I like that one.”

“Lexa hates me,” he grumbles, and Clarke smiles.

“I’m counting on it.” 

* * *

Clarke takes great pleasure in filling out the RSVP with her name and Bellamy Blake as her plus one.

“How is this supposed to work?” Bellamy wants to know. “She already knows me. She’s not going to buy it as a legitimate date.”

She shakes her head. “She was always jealous of you. She’ll buy it.”

“Wait, what?”

Clarke concentrates on adding a little flourish to the ‘e’ on the end of  _Blake_ , and doesn’t look at him. “She’d get weird about us hanging out. She thought we were secretly in love or something.” She tacks a little flower design onto the ‘y’ of  _Bellamy_ , considers it, then nods, and finally risks a glance up at him. He’s frowning slightly, watching her.

They just look at each other, quiet, for a long moment. Finally, Bellamy says, “Huh.” And that’s it.

* * *

Clarke and Bellamy’s friendship has never been brotherly/sisterly, which is what a lot of people want to assume of best friends of opposite sexes. 

Clarke likes to make fun of Bellamy’s poorly veiled interest in her breasts when she wears low-cut tops. Bellamy likes to play Scrabble shirtless because the smooth expanse of skin short-circuits Clarke’s brain, and he knows it. Octavia tags every picture of them she posts to Instagram with the hashtag “#married,” even when it’s just a picture of them yelling at the baseball game on TV, or eating cereal or something. 

It’s a lot for any of Clarke or Bellamy’s significant others to believe that they’re just best friends.

Even though it’s the truth, sometimes it’s hard for Clarke to believe, too.

* * *

Raven lets herself into Clarke’s apartment the next week as if she owns the place; Clarke’s not alarmed, because Raven tends to act like she owns everywhere. 

She hoists herself onto the counter next to where Clarke’s squinting at the snickerdoodle recipe in  _The Joy of Cooking_. She’d figured Bellamy deserved something for agreeing to be her date; even for best friends, that’s above and beyond the call of duty. 

“Why are these his favorite?” she grumbles. “Why not chocolate chip? It’s easy to get good chocolate chip cookies from a store. But these taste gross unless they’re homemade.”

Raven ignores that. “So. You’re taking Blake on a date.”

Clarke throws an irritated glance at her friend. “It’s to make sure I don’t look like an idiot at Lexa’s wedding.” 

Raven waves that away. “You could have invited me. She doesn’t know me. I would have made out with you, even. Made it convincing.”

“We can still make out,” Clarke offers, dumping some vanilla extract into the mixing bowl; Raven rolls her eyes. 

“I’ve had enough of being the other woman, thanks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Clarke frowns. “And, technically, I was the other woman.” 

“It means you want Lexa to think you two are really together because  _you_ want to really be together.” 

“That’s—you’re—” She sputters until Raven smirks.

* * *

Clarke brings Bellamy the cookies; she realizes that Raven might be right when she wants to lick the cinnamon and sugar right off his mouth when he bites into one.

* * *

The day of the wedding, Clarke gets ready and drives herself over to Bellamy’s. She figures she can leave her car there, and when the cab drops them back off at his house later, she can just crash until morning. 

She pulls into her spot in the driveway next to his crappy Toyota, puts the car in park, flips down the visor so she can check herself in the mirror one last time. 

As promised, she’s wearing the purple strappy-backed dress; it might be a little risqué for a wedding, but Clarke’s not about to worry that she’s dressed too provocatively when she’s pretty sure she was only invited out of spite. Serves Lexa right if the slightly-too-short skirt and slightly-too-low neckline reminds her of what she walked away from.

She checks her makeup, swipes on another coat of lipgloss, tugs a few more strands of hair out of her coronet braid so it looks messier, the way Bellamy tries to pretend he doesn’t prefer. The earrings she’s wearing are the ones he gave her when she graduated from college, a vintage set she’d eyed at the consignment shop a dozen times but never said she’d wanted.

He knew her well enough to know what she wanted, even if she never said it aloud.

Octavia had told her later that he’d worked overtime for months to afford them. Clarke had noticed he was busier than normal, but he’d told her he was just covering for Connor, who was out on paternity leave.

Nodding firmly at her reflection, Clarke grabs her bag and locks the car. 

“You ready?” she calls, letting herself into the house. She takes a second to enjoy the sensation of the delicate skirt swirling around her thighs, the cool air of the house tickling her back.

“Fuck,” she hears, and she turns to see him standing in hallway staring at her. A white button-down is tucked into crisp grey slacks; the matching blazer and a striped tie are clutched, forgotten, in his hands. 

Something in her belly clutches at the sight of him, mouthwateringly handsome in his dress clothes. 

“Hey,” she says. Clarke has to clear her throat. “Um, you look good.”

“Uh. Yeah.” She raises an eyebrow, and he hastily adds, “Same.” 

Clarke sets her clutch on the entryway table and approaches him. Bellamy watches her, almost warily. 

She gives him a wry smile and takes the tie out of his hand. “Leave it. Or else I’ll be too underdressed next to you.” 

“Thank god,” he mutters, and then she can hear the intake of breathe when she reaches for his collar. 

“There,” she says softly, undoing the very top buttons. She did it to make his outfit appear more relaxed, but it incidentally also has the effect of making her pulse speed up. “Put the jacket on.” 

He rolls his eyes, muttering a “Yes, princess,” but does as she says. Clarke reaches up, fixes his collar, smooths the lapel of his jacket over his chest.

“You’re not a total loss,” she tells him, and he snorts. 

“You’re of mediocre appeal,” he replies, and she grins before tugging him in front of the mirror that hangs over the entryway table. 

She curls her arm through his, purses her lips at their reflection. She reaches up with her free hand and messes up his hair a little bit more, then beams. “There. We look like we belong together.”

She can’t tell if it’s her imagination, or if he really does sound kind of funny when he says, “Yeah. We do.”

* * *

Lexa is beautiful, and Costia is lovely, and Clarke feels the tiniest bit of grudging happiness for them, but mostly she’s ridiculously grateful that Bellamy’s by her side. 

When Lexa and Costia are walking down separate aisles, designed to meet in the middle at the altar, Bellamy leans over to whisper in her ear. His lips brush against the shell of her ear, his breath hot and damp. “So do you want to make fun of their outfits, or…?”

Clarke tries to keep the laughter quiet, but Lexa’s terrifying aunt glares daggers at them. Then Clarke sighs as the ceremony begins. “No. They look beautiful.”

Bellamy reaches over, intertwines their fingers. “They’re alright. But I prefer blondes.” 

She tips her face up to look at him, probably make fun of him because  _really_ , Bellamy? He’s always been prone to bad puns and dad jokes, but that was pretty damn cheesy.

But her breath catches in her throat at the way he’s looking at her, and when his eyes meet hers, he just smiles softly, the crooked smile pulling one corner of his mouth higher than the other.

* * *

Clarke holds their place in line to greet the newlyweds while Bellamy hits the open bar to get their drinks, but it moves way faster than she anticipated. All too soon, there are only two people separating her from Lexa and Costia, and Bellamy’s nowhere to be found. 

One person between them.

And…now it’s Clarke’s turn to face her happily-married ex, and she’s all on her own.  

She pastes on a smile, tries not to lose it when she sees the slightest uptick of Lexa’s eyebrow when she sees it’s Clarke. 

“Hi Lexa,” Clarke says. “Costia, it’s so nice to meet you.”

Costia’s smile is polite, perfunctory. She clearly has no idea who Clarke is. 

“I’m pleased you could attend,” Lexa says. She looks around. “I was under the impression you were attending with Bellamy.”

“Oh!” Costia exclaims, “You must be Clarke!”  

Taken aback, Clarke just nods. A tiny uncharitable part of her is delighted that it was Bellamy’s name that made the connection for Costia, because that means Lexa’s been talking about him, and why would she be talking about Bellamy unless she’s irritated by the fact he’s Clarke’s plus one?

Her own smile is more genuine this time. “Yeah, that’s me. Bellamy’s around somewhere, getting drinks before the lines at the bar are too crazy.”

Costia laughs, and Clarke likes her more and more. “I’m jealous,” she says conspiratorially. “I haven’t had anything more than half a glass of champagne in the bridal suite.”

“Well, partying is what the honeymoon’s for, right?” Clarke says, and even Lexa smiles at that.

A disembodied hand thrusts itself in front of her face just then, holding a jack and coke with a little umbrella. She blinks, takes it, and Bellamy winds his now-free arm around her waist and presses a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth that has her stomach jumping.

He turns to the brides. “Congratulations,” he tells them warmly. “It was a nice ceremony.” 

He chats them up a few minutes more, and it’s kind of amazing how Clarke can forget about the charming smooth-talker that’s hidden underneath the countless layers of Greek mythology references and hair-trigger responses to mentions of the Library of Alexandria and forgetting to buy actual food when they go to Target because he’s busy yelling about the historical inaccuracies in the movies for sale. 

She prefers the overly passionate nerd, but she’s not complaining about seeing him like this too. 

“Well, I think we’ve been monopolizing the happy couple long enough, babe,” Clarke says, letting her free hand toy with the curls at the nape of his neck. She’s pretty sure she’s not imagining his shiver. “Should we go find our seats?” 

“Sounds good. Lexa, Costia. Best wishes,” he says, nodding, and they escape.

* * *

“Babe?” he asks when they’re sitting at a round table just to the side of the dance floor.

“Hmm?” Clarke replies absently, taking in the lovely, rustic decor in the centerpieces and the lights draped through the rafters of the pretty barn. 

It takes an embarrassingly long time for Clarke to realize he’s not calling her babe to get her attention, but to remind her that she called him babe first.

She takes a big gulp of her drink, then directs a winning smile at him. “Yeah. That happened.” 

“To keep up the date pretense?”

“Uh.” Clarke examines her glass. They really went heavy on the ice, she thinks critically. There’s hardly any alcohol in her glass. “Sure.”

“Clarke.”

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, and sucks the last bit of liquid out of her cocktail, shaking the ice around in the glass.

The sound of the ice clinking around stops abruptly when a warm hand makes itself known on her thigh, and she stills.   

“Is that just to keep up the date pretense?” she asks shakily.

He pauses, makes a show of thinking about it. “Sure,” he says, drawing out the word in an imitation of her.

“Bellamy!” 

His thumb strokes over her skin, nudging her skirt higher and higher up on her thigh. 

“Oh my god,” she says, “I’m going to fucking murder you.”

Lexa’s scary aunt pauses as she passes by and gives Clarke the dirtiest look possible. 

“Sorry,” Clarke says, wincing. Then she grabs Bellamy’s hand, though she keeps it in place on her thigh rather than shoving it away.

“What are you doing?”

Bellamy laughs. “I don’t have a clue. Clarke, why am I here?” 

She stares at him, lips parted. “What?”

“Why am I here?” he repeats. “I mean, I get that you didn’t want to come alone to your ex’s wedding. That would suck. But why  _me_?”

“Why not you?”

He huffs. “God, Clarke. You could have brought any one of our friends. You could have found someone you actually wanted to date. You probably could have asked a stranger on the street to be your date and they would have been like, ‘hell yeah I’ll go.’”

She lets out a long slow breath. “I think that’s probably an exaggeration. But who said I didn’t take someone I wanted to actually take on a date?”

He looks a little surprised, and she rolls her eyes though her skin is covered in goosebumps originating from the spot where he’s still touching her, and he’s way too cute with his dumb suit and dumb hair and dumb stupid perfect face. “I asked you to come because I didn’t want to come alone, and because I wanted to go with  _you._ ”

“Oh,” he says faintly.

“I want to do everything with you,” she adds softly, and he looks at her very intently, like he’s trying to figure out if she means it in the ‘you’re my best friend’ way or the ‘you’re my best friend and I’m in love with you and I’m a big chicken about actually saying it out loud because I don’t want to ruin this if you don’t feel the same way’ way. 

But Bellamy knows her well enough to know what she wants, even if she never says it aloud.

He pulls his hand off her thigh, and Clarke’s stomach feels like she’s just gone over the drop on a roller coaster, because how can him stopping touching her be a good sign?

But then he cups her face in his palms, searching her expression earnestly, and Clarke swallows hard and waits, keeping as still as she can. 

“God, you’re an idiot,” he says finally, crackling a smile, and her mouth drops open in indignation just in time for his lips to land on hers. 

He tastes like the whiskey they’ve been drinking, and he moves one hand from her face to slide around her back, mumbling curses when his fingers tangle in the thin straps criss-crossing her back. Clarke abandons her glass to wrap her hands in his jacket collar and tug him nearer, letting out a none-too-quiet moan when he licks into her mouth, and he uses the hand on her back to haul her closer until she’s basically in his lap. 

It’s not like they haven’t been close before, but  _this_ kind of close, with mouths and tongues and  _hands—_ it’s pretty much the best thing that’s happened to Clarke, ever.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” a voice says sharply, and Clarke wrenches her mouth away from Bellamy’s. He looks dazed, but it quickly morphs into a horrified expression that matches how she feels when she realizes Lexa’s scary aunt has yet again caught Clarke doing something inappropriate. 

“This is a  _family_ event,” Lexa’s aunt hisses. “Control yourselves!”

“Sorry,” they say in unison, and then stay frozen in place until she finally leaves them alone.

Then Clarke looks at Bellamy, and Bellamy looks at Clarke, and they laugh until their stomachs hurt.

* * *

Bellamy takes her dancing.

Well, he requests the Macarena from the DJ when dancing starts after dinner, and drags her out on the dance floor, spinning her wildly and forcing her to do the hand motions until she can hardly breathe, she’s laughing so hard.

And then he keeps her smiling, pulling her into him with that hand on her bare back, until her breasts brush his chest and he leads her in a slow sway to the music.

And he kisses her softly, sweetly, until the only thought in her head is him.

Well, and that they’re both idiots for waiting so long.

But mostly she’s just thinking of him. 

“So,” he says, when she’s lost count of how many songs they’ve danced to. “You went to your ex’s wedding. You had a date, an awesome one if I say so myself, so you definitely couldn’t be considered pathetic.”

Clarke hums, lets herself play with the curls at the nape of his neck again. “Seems like tonight’s been a success.” 

“Yeah?”

She smiles. “Yeah. Let’s leave.” 

His eyebrows rise. “Now?”

“Now.” She doesn’t remember the last time she’s felt this shy around him; they’ve been friends for so long, it’s hard to imagine she ever felt this way, like mutant butterflies are swarming through her whole body.

But the grin that stretches across his face sends all but the best of the butterflies flying away. 

“Yeah. Let’s go.” 

* * *

They never ended up drinking the way they’d planned, but Clarke doesn’t mind having to wait out near the street for their cab to arrive. She forgot to bring a wrap, so Bellamy wraps her up instead, all while teasing her mercilessly about being amazed she even remembered to put on underwear. 

Clarke laughs as their cab pulls up, and he raises an eyebrow. 

“Bellamy.”

“What?”

“Does this dress look like it can hide a bra?”

“…Oh.” 

As he pulls open the door for her, an expression of fierce concentration on his face, Clarke hears her name being called.

Bellamy looks behind Clarke. “I’ll wait for you in the car?”

“Thanks,” Clarke says, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth, and turns to wait for Lexa to catch up to her. 

“You’re leaving already?” Lexa asks, just the slightest bit out of breath. 

Clarke tucks some of the hair that’s come out of her braid behind her ear. “Yeah. We’re ready to head home.”

Lexa nods. “I understand.” She fidgets a little with the beading on her exquisitely tailored top, and Clarke gets the feeling Lexa has no more idea how to navigate the situation than she does.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Clarke tells Lexa, and the knowledge that Bellamy’s waiting in the cab for her, and they’re going home  _together_ , lets her realize she means it. “I enjoyed meeting your new wife.” 

The other woman nods. “I was glad you accepted the invitation. I wasn’t sure if you would.” 

“Even with Bellamy as my plus one?” Clarke asks dryly, and the faintest hint of a blush paints Lexa’s cheeks.

“He’s not my favorite,” Lexa admits. “But I wasn’t surprised that you brought him.”

Clarke glances back at the waiting cab. “Yeah. We’re kind of a package deal.” 

“I hope you’re happy,” Lexa blurts out. “Really,” Lexa continues softly when Clarke turns back to her. “I know it’s not what it felt like, when we broke up. But I just wanted us both to be happy, and I had the feeling that someone else made you a lot happier than I ever could.” 

It seems unkind to tell Lexa on her wedding day that she was right, that Bellamy makes Clarke feel the happiest she’s ever been. 

“I know,” she says instead. “I hope you’re happy, too. We both deserve it. Congratulations, Lexa. I hope you and Costia have a long, happy life together.” 

Lexa has that small, luminous smile on her face. “Thank you.”

“Anyway, we’ve got to get going,” Clarke says, and Lexa nods.

“Of course.” 

But as she’s climbing into the cab, Lexa calls out one more thing.

“And Clarke? I hope you and Bellamy have a long, happy life together, too.”

* * *

They do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts if you get a chance!


	40. The Pretty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From apanoplyofsong on tumblr: "Oh man but “23. i’m really drunk, please help me get safely out of the way so i don’t ruin my friends wedding” for Bellarke would be a gift because: either of them drunk, I mean GOD BLESS"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm VERY slowly but surely making my way through the prompts in my inbox. It would speed things up if I were able to write drabbles, but, alas, apparently I am not capable of that.
> 
> It is getting harder and harder to title these things. There are just so MANY.

“Oh my god, I’m  _so_ sorry!” The blonde is looking at him earnestly and speaking way too loudly as she pets the growing damp spot on his chest where she spilled her glass of champagne. The fact that she’s not even using a napkin, and is essentially just groping his chest, tells him she is drunk.

Like, really drunk.

He doesn’t recognize her, so he figures she must be there for Lincoln. He feels like he’d remember if any of Octavia’s friends looked like she does. 

Taking hold of her wrist, he halts her progressively more intimate strokes. “I’m not sure that’s helping.”

Her face flushes even darker than the glow the alcohol has already given it. “I’m  _sorry_ ,” she whispers. Well, he thinks it’s supposed to be a whisper, but it’s pretty much a yell. Way over where they’re dancing by the DJ booth, he can see Miller and Monty lift their heads and glance over at Bellamy and the drunk girl.

“I believe you,” he tells her, raising an eyebrow. 

She looks confused, then a look of dawning horror comes over her face. 

“Oh my god. Listen— _listen_ ,” she says, and when she wobbles, she reaches out and plants her palms firmly on Bellamy’s chest. He looks down, bemused. “I’m really— _really_  drunk.” 

“I noticed.” 

She hiccups, and why the  _hell_ is she so cute? She’s a drunken nuisance at his little sister’s wedding. He should not find her cute. That is the opposite of the emotion he should feel as an outraged older brother.

“I’m Clarke Griffin,” she tells him then, as if that’ll clear things up.

Well, it does, a little, because he remembers Lincoln talking about his friend Clarke from college. Bellamy had just always thought Clarke was a dude.

“Okay.” When she wobbles again, he sighs and moves so he can hold her up by the waist. “Well, Clarke, I’m Bellamy. Why don’t we get you some water, maybe some food?”

“I didn’t mean to get drunk,” she says, and her voice is a little teary and please god do not let the blonde start sobbing on him. “Don’t tell Lincoln that I got drunk. Please?”

“I’m pretty sure he’d be able to figure it out just by looking at you. How’s gravity treating you, princess?”

She glares at him, but the effect is lessened by the fact that he is the only thing preventing her from collapsing into a puddle on the ground at this point. 

“Lincoln said you were  _nice_ ,” she says, voice accusing. “You’re the  _worst_ at nice. You get, like, an F minus in nice.”

He can’t help it; charmed, he cracks a smile.

Then, before he can realize what’s happening, she yelps and her legs fold underneath her as she drops like a rock to sit on her ass.

“What the hell?” he blurts out; she’s like sand, slipping through his firm–he thought–grasp. “Are you alright?”

She shakes her head, scoots a little closer to his legs as if trying to hide. “No. Listen.  _Listen._ You need to help me.”

Help her into a cab, maybe, except he’s kind of worried about her actually making it home by herself in this state.

“What do you need help with, Clarke?” he asks instead, voice purposefully soothing.

“Lincoln’s behind you,” Clarke says, doing a slightly better job at whispering this time. Her voice is only a normal volume instead of a yell. “I don’t want him to see me drunk. He’s nicer than you and he’ll worry.”

“Is this a normal thing for you?” Bellamy wonders. If it is, he would worry too. 

But she shakes her head. “Only when I forget to eat dinner. And maybe lunch. And I think I was out of protein bars for breakfast.”

“Shit,” he says, and her eyes widen in panic. 

“Please!” she insists. “I don’t want to interrupt the, um.” He can see her thinking hard, and failing. “The togetherness party. He’s too pretty.”

“Um.”

“You’re pretty too,” she adds, her voice heartfelt. She sort of hugs his leg, pats his knee. “So pretty. Please?”

“Oh my god,” Bellamy says, and pulls her to her feet. 

“You’re pretty,” she repeats, now pleasantly complimentary, and somehow he understands that’s how she means to say, “Thank you.” 

Somehow, he gets her through the crowd. It’s actually a minor miracle, given that his sister’s the bride and until Clarke spilled her drink on him, he’d been bombarded by well-wishers complimenting him on how well Octavia’s turned out or whatever. 

Apparently, the key to being left alone is to be practically carrying a hot blonde. He imagines that they can’t actually look like they’re up to anything family-friendly when Wick gives him a smirk and thumbs up when he sees Bellamy and Clarke slipping into the bed and breakfast.

He dodges a few more guests, reaches the bottom of the stairs. Clarke’s getting harder to steer, her body drooping more and more.

“Do you have a room?” he asks. He’s not hopeful.

She makes a noncommittal type of noises and stares at him. Well, at his hair, and her hands come up to twist curls around her fingers. 

“Pretty,” she says softly. 

“I know,” he says, his stomach trembling in a funny way at the gentle touch. “We’ve established that I am, in fact, very pretty. Do you have a room?” 

“Uh…”

Bellamy sighs. “Okay.” 

All of the wedding party had rooms for two nights, the night before the wedding and tonight. Bellamy had barely slept the night before, too anxious over whether or not the caterers had the right directions to the wedding venue, over whether the flowers were too cold in the industrial refrigerators in the bed and breakfast’s kitchen, over whether he could handle his baby sister getting married when it seemed like he taught her how to ride a bike just the day before.

He’d been looking forward to tonight, collapsing into bed after everyone had either gone to their own rooms or headed home, and sleeping like the dead. 

And instead he has an armful of drunk blonde and a night on the room’s tiny couch to look forward to.

“Come on,” Bellamy says, hitching her up when she starts to slide toward the ground. “Clarke, come on. Up the stairs.” She seems more interested in the way her skirt is floating as she continues to lose the battle against gravity. “Clarke! Lincoln’s coming!” 

She gasps, digs her hands into his arms. “You’re a lying liar,” she accuses, but she starts dragging herself toward the steps. “He’s still out there, with the, um, bride.”

He rolls his eyes. “You mean Octavia?”

“Yeah, with Octagon,” she agrees. 

Bellamy snorts a laugh, then lets out a tired sigh.

* * *

In a few short minutes, he’s gotten her to down two glasses of water and a couple of smushed granola bars from his suitcase, and now she’s settled in his bed. 

“I’ve got to go back down to the reception,” he tells her as he puts his travel bottle of aspirin and a bottle of water on the nightstand. “Don’t freak out on me if you wake up when I come in later, okay? I promise I’ll be sleeping on the couch.” Or the floor, he considers grimly; trying to sleep on that tiny loveseat might prove even less comfortable than the area rug.

“Bellamy?”

“Yeah?” he asks, hand on the doorknob. God, is she going to be sick?

“Thank you,” she says, her voice small and sleepy. “You don’t  _really_ get an F minus in niceness. You’re actually the nicest.” 

“What’s  _the nicest_  translate to in a letter grade?” he teases gently. “Did my GPA go up?”

She blows a lazy raspberry, just a quiet buzzing of her lips. “You made the honor roll,” she slurs, and by the time he closes the door silently behind him, she’s well on her way to asleep.

* * *

Bellamy forces himself to mingle for another hour and a half; when his new brother-in-law notes, concerned, that he hasn’t seen Clarke since just after the ceremony, Bellamy waves it away. “She had a long day. Exhausted. Went up to bed already.”

Octavia narrows her eyes speculatively. “I didn’t know she was staying overnight.” 

Bellamy coughs a little. “Yeah, it seemed like best solution. Uh, I’ll be right back.” He leaves them, hides in a corner to text his sister where Lincoln won’t see him. 

_clarke didn’t eat, got drunk at reception, didn’t want to ruin things or make lincoln worry. i put her in my room to sleep it off._

She replies almost instantly, and he remembers that she’d had a special pocket sewn into her wedding dress just for her phone and a tube of lipstick. 

_ur such a dad. i’ll tell lincoln later, u 2 should meet us for bfast tomorrow._

Bellamy makes a face at the idea of acting like a dad to Clarke, then decides he’s finally spent long enough at the reception. He circles back to the newlyweds, shakes Lincoln’s hand, holds Octavia in a tight hug until she sighs dramatically and pats his back gingerly. 

In his room, Clarke is sleeping, letting out gentle little snores that remind him of puppies and kittens when they sleep. 

He likes the noise, actually. It’s constant reassurance that she’s still alive, which is good, because it would be bad if Lincoln’s friend died on his watch and also because Bellamy kind of likes her—or, at least he likes drunk Clarke, and he feels like that means there’s about a 78% chance he’ll probably  _really_ like sober Clarke and be overly invested in her caloric intake. He knows himself. 

And then he falls asleep to the sound of her breathing, curled up on the rug with a throw pillow from the loveseat and an extra blanket he finds in the closet.

* * *

She’s still asleep, limbs akimbo when he gets up. Bellamy considers her sleeping form for a minute. It seems rude to just  _wake_ her, but breakfast was served half an hour ago and checkout is in another hour. So he writes a note on the sticky stationery pad that the bed and breakfast stocks, sticks it on the water bottle, then balances the water bottle on her forehead and goes downstairs.

She comes into the dining room in fifteen minutes, her hair pulled back in hasty-looking braid, her heels in her hands.

Clarke squints at him when she sees him. “You.”

“Me,” he agrees.

“Did you put a  _water bottle_ on my  _forehead_?” she demands.

“Did you drink it? You need to hydrate. And it had a note,” he explains, and she snorts, slumping into the seat across from him. 

“Yeah, I drank it after it fell. On my face. To answer your note, I remember everything, your niceness grade has been lowered to a B minus, and where are Lincoln and Octavia?”

Bellamy makes a face. “They haven’t showed for breakfast yet. I’m trying not to think about why.”

Her laughter is loud and bright, and he doesn’t really care at all that it’s directed at him. 

The 78% chance of him liking sober Clarke rises to a solid 99.8%. 

“So,” he says, piling bacon and waffles and fruit onto her plate while she watches, bemused. “Long day yesterday.”

Clarke winces. “Yeah. Shit, yeah, it was bad. I should have realized how bad before I started on the champagne. I worked an ER shift, and there were  _three_ car accidents on I-5.” 

“I thought Lincoln said you and he met in an art class,” Bellamy comments. “You’re a doctor?”

“Doing my residency,” she says. “We met in a studio art class in undergrad, then Lincoln got his teaching credential and I went to med school because I make poor life decisions. Are you done yet?” she asks, and Bellamy sticks a fork in the scoop of fresh whipped cream he’d added to her plate. 

“You really need to eat regularly. Not just protein bars, either. Actual meals, with fruits and carbs and protein that’s not all soy-based. Shouldn’t you, as a doctor, know this?”

“I do know something about that. I also know something about concussions, lacerations, broken bones, and internal bleeding,” she rattles off in between bites of waffle. “That was kind of more important yesterday.”

“You can’t save the world if you neglect yourself,” he tells her. “And you really look like you’ve been neglecting yourself.” 

“What a charming way to tell a girl she looks like crap,” she says dryly, and shoves a whole strawberry into her mouth. 

Bellamy just grins, nudges her foot with his. “That’s alright. We figured out last night that I’m the pretty one in this relationship.”

Clarke snorts, practically inhaling bacon. “Since when is this a relationship?”

He shrugs. “Since I’m asking you out on a date. Tomorrow work?”

Clarke opens her mouth, closes it. Opens it again. “Is this a ploy to make sure I don’t go the whole day without eating again?”

“Yes,” he says, handing her a coffee cup now that he figures she’s eaten enough for it not to make her sick to her stomach. “So, tomorrow?”

She smiles down into her mug, wrapping her hands around it. “Tomorrow.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed, and let me know your thoughts if you get a chance!


	41. Matchmaking (Out)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From sandycoelho on tumblr: "I would love to read something about Octavia being the matchmaker to Bellamy and Clarke because she knows and see the way they like each other, without doing something to be together."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This basically required Octavia POV, so here you go! I think she ended up being more fed up with them than match-making, but hopefully you enjoy. :)

The pretty little blonde who opens the door when Octavia knocks is the opposite of her brother’s type.

Bellamy likes brunettes, occasionally redheads, and he likes them tall, so he doesn’t have to bend down to kiss them. Otherwise he complains about getting a crick in his neck like he’s a seventy-year-old man instead of a reasonably athletic twenty-six-year-old.

Octavia’s pretty sure she’s actually heard him unironically refer to some teenagers as “whippersnappers” before.

“Clarke Griffin?” Octavia asks, and the blonde nods.

“You’re here about the room?” 

“God, yes, please,” Octavia replies, and ignores Bellamy’s glower and  _hmmph._ He’d been a miserable grump ever since she told him she was moving out of the dorms for her junior year and she wouldn’t be moving back in at home. She’d only gotten him to calm down when she’d promised he could accompany her to check out the handful of people looking for a roommate that she’d contacted on Craigslist.

“I’m Octavia,” she says, and elbows her brother. “This is Bell, my brother. He’s not looking for a room, though; he’s just here to make sure you won’t murder me in some kind of pagan sacrifice.”

“Gotcha,” Clarke says, letting them in. “Ritual sacrifices for monotheistic religions are still cool though, right?” 

Bellamy snorts a laugh; when she glances at him, he looks as surprised as she feels to hear the sound. Then he adopts a glare. "What?"

“Bell speaks,” Clarke notes, smiling.

“Bellamy,” he says, almost hasty, almost harsh. “Only my sister gets to call me Bell.”

The other woman shrugs it off, only raising a brow, before turning back to Octavia. “Let me show you the spare room.”

Clarke is petite, she hates wearing heels and pants, she thinks the twentieth century is the most interesting era in history thus far due to the medical and technological advancements, and she owns her condo outright, which means she’s rich. Octavia’s honestly not sure there’s anyone farther from Bellamy’s usual type.

So Octavia expects Bell to hate her new roommate, and there’s certainly a lot of sweating and yelling and insults happening when Clarke and Bellamy have to interact while they’re helping Octavia move in.

But Octavia sees the way his eyes linger on Clarke when she’s not looking, and she’s not so sure.

* * *

After living with Clarke for a month, Octavia can say with certainty that Bellamy is the opposite of Clarke’s type. She doesn't really  seem to have a physical type, but from the stories it's clear she has a pattern when it comes to personality. Her two major past relationships have been with smooth, sophisticated people, the type to not only know the current political events but to want to talk about them. 

Bellamy knows about current political events, Octavia concedes, but he’s more likely to yell at someone about them, tell them to  _go on the fucking internet and educate yourself, jesus_ , than to discuss them in calm, measured debate over dinner. 

“Okay, you’re making pretty normalish relationships sound like episodes of  _The Twilight Zone_ ,” Clarke says, throwing a balled-up sock at her. “Just because I like being informed, and like being  _with_ people who are informed about things that are happening in the world, does not mean I have a weird debate fetish.”

“Nah, not debate. You like goody two-shoes,” Octavia decides, watching the bead of condensation roll down the side of the ice cream carton balanced on her stomach. Clarke snorts. “Really,” Octavia continues, “all that  _greater good_ and  _helping others_ and  _I don’t believe in raising my voice above a loud whisper_. Do community improvement action plans get you going, Clarke?”

“Oh my god,” Clarke says, and reaches over to stab a fork into the ice cream carton. They’d run out of clean spoons and neither felt it was really necessary to do the dishes until every utensil was out of commission. “Fine, yes, you’ve discovered my secret. My turn ons are long walks on the beach and going to town hall meetings together.” She sticks the fork in her mouth and flops back against the couch cushions; they’re stretched across the huge sectional couch as they marathon ridiculous CW shows during the long weekend.

“I knew it,” Octavia crows, and gives herself a brain freeze with the next massive bite of ice cream she eats. 

* * *

They go into the city for a baseball game because Clarke's parents give her season tickets for her birthday, and Clarke is actually insanely into it. Octavia buys a team t-shirt so Clarke doesn't disown her; Clarke wears a team shirt, team hat, team sunglasses, and brings the team sweatshirt for when it gets cold.

Bellamy was there when Clarke invited Octavia, because Octavia might not live in his house anymore but he struggles with boundaries, and Clarke went ahead and invited him too; Bellamy goes just so he can root for the other team and piss Clarke off, or at least that's what he says.

"Since when do you like baseball?" Octavia asks when they're on the metro, heading to the ballpark. Clarke and her best friend Raven, who'd been dragged away from her dissertation to make up the quartet, are talking animatedly about the two consecutive home runs the team hit during the last game. As a result, Octavia and Bellamy might as well be alone; the two women are paying them zero attention.

"Huh?" he says absently; Octavia frowns and flicks him in the forehead. "Hey! What the fuck, O?" he gripes, turning to look at her. 

"Baby," she says. "Seriously. Baseball? You?"

He shrugs, glances back the way he'd been looking before she flicked him. Octavia follows his line of sight, sees Clarke bouncing on her toes in excitement as she points at the next stop on the line. 

"I like it better than football," Bellamy says eventually. "And it's for her birthday. I can be nice for her birthday."

Octavia frowns at him, skeptical, but stands up, getting ready to get off the metro.

During the game, Bellamy catches a foul ball hit their way by the other team, and hands it to Clarke with a smirk and a "Happy birthday, princess." 

With a sour expression, she accepts it, but Octavia catches her smiling down at it, tracing the seams, all throughout the rest of the game. 

* * *

It’s a couple months, all in all, before it really, actually sinks in. 

Octavia’s gotten used to them bickering, about who’s going to pay for slurpees when they walk to 7-11 on a hot, sticky night; about the safety of the neighborhood; about whether artists or historians have more job security—it’s endless, and it makes Octavia take forever to realize that they actually like each other.

She hadn’t seriously considered it before, even when she’d caught Bellamy eyeing Clarke in her bikini when they’d gone to the lake. 

But really, who wouldn’t eye Clarke in her bikini? If Octavia hadn’t been able to resist, how could her brother be expected to? 

But then—it happens more than she can explain away like that. And it’s not always that Clarke looks hot, either. She catches him just  _looking_ at her roommate, thoughtful, and just a couple of times, maybe a little awed.

Octavia worries a little, when she realizes, that her brother's going to get his heart broken, or at least bruised, because, yeah, he's a dick, but he's a dick with feelings. And if he's falling for little blonde Clarke, it's more serious than anything Octavia's seen before. 

Bellamy’s not—her brother is  _not_ a nice guy. He doesn’t watch his temper like he should, and being in the car with him during traffic is like being trapped in a tiny box with a drunken sailor on leave. Lots of profanity.  _Lots._ He doesn’t like Monty and Miller’s cat, and who doesn’t like their cat? Ernesto tries to curl up in his lap whenever they visit, and Bellamy just holds out his arm like a barricade. He leaves the neighbors tersely-worded notes telling them, basically, to suck it when they ask if Bellamy can’t just make an effort to give his house a little more curb appeal.

Bellamy is about the farthest thing from a polite, civic-minded goody two-shoes Octavia can come up with.

How could Clarke ever fall for him?

But then, she mentions that Clarke is home sick with a cold, and the next day she’s there to witness Clarke’s look of surprise, followed by gratitude when Bellamy stops by with a pot of spicy soup, and the way he gruffly tells her to  _take some fucking vitamins and go to sleep, damn it_.

And Octavia considers the way Clarke’s fever-flushed cheeks turn just a little pinker, and yeah, her brother is not a nice guy. But Bellamy? Is a really, really good man.

And that might actually be _exactly_ Clarke's type. 

* * *

It’s actually almost kind of gross after that, because suddenly their bickering doesn’t seem like  _arguing;_ it seems like foreplay, and that’s pretty much the most disgusting thing ever. 

“You have serious problems,” she tells them when they pause for breath during an argument—“ _Discussion_ ,” Clarke insisted—about buying in bulk. 

“What?” Clarke says, defensive. Octavia rolls her eyes and doesn’t bother to reply.

So Bellamy jumps in. “What the hell do you mean by that?” he asks, and Octavia wonders if he realizes how he shifts closer to Clarke, how she unconsciously leans toward him when he does.

“Just make out already,” she sighs, and Clarke goes bright red while Bellamy pales. 

“That’s not—” 

“We aren’t—”

“Why would you—”

“ _Octavia_!”

* * *

Octavia doesn’t have to watch them bicker/flirt as much after that, though she thinks that might be because they’re getting it out of the way when she’s not home. 

She would be two thirds ecstatic, one third grossed out if Bellamy and Clarke hanging out without her meant that they were finally making out, but instead she’s pretty sure they’re just watching weird PBS documentaries about beavers on Netflix, and eating all of her Captain Crunch cereal while she’s at work.

“I thought you were cool,” she laments one night. Bellamy just left, mumbling about covering Sienna’s shift at the museum tomorrow, and she’s poking Clarke’s leg with her toes while Clarke tries to paint her nails. “I thought, ‘hey, cool girl, hot and probably a good wingwoman, my brother doesn’t like her, definitely a cool chick. I should move in.’”

Clarke shrugs, tongue poking out a little as she concentrates on the nail polish. “That’s your bad choice. I take no responsibility for any assumptions you may have drawn about me, or the decisions you made as a result of them.”

“Yeah,” Octavia says, texting Bellamy a picture of Clarke and adding a bunch of winky emojis. “You’re still hot, I guess, but you’re a terrible wingwoman and my brother’s basically in love with you.” 

Clarke lets out a vicious string of profanity when her hand jerks and she gets polish all over her cuticles and the side of her toe. 

Octavia watches with mild interest as Clarke tries and fails to salvage the paint job. Eventually she just huffs in irritation, capping the bottle and tossing it aside as she collapses back into the couch cushions. 

“No, he’s not,” Clarke mutters after a moment, which surprises her; she hadn’t really expected Clarke to acknowledge her. 

So she considers how to respond, how to tell Clarke that her brother’s obviously twisted up in knots about her, how he probably wants to swaddle her in blankets and/or have her babies, and how Clarke is becoming just as obvious. 

She starts laughing, _hard._ There's definitely cackling happening as she tugs Clarke up off the couch, tucks her phone in her pocket and her flip flops in her hands, and shoves her out the front door. 

“Octavia!” she hears faintly as she flips the deadbolt. “Let me in!”

“I can’t hear you,” Octavia replies loudly, and texts Bellamy  _u owe me and ur welcome, loser._

He texts back in two minutes:  _??????_

Then, again, in an hour and a half. 

_...thanks._

* * *

Bellamy and Clarke finally start making out. Octavia’s glad, because the universe has basically validated her as being  _super right all the time_ , and also because she can stop being so invested in getting them to make out now that they’re doing it of their own free will. It had been getting weird. 

The only thing she did not factor in was that they’d be doing it of their own free will literally all the time.

The fifteenth time Octavia walks in on them making out, which is also the fourth time she walks in on them basically groping each other on the couch, she groans, turns right back around, and goes to the coffeeshop downtown to start a new Craigslist search for somewhere to live.

The hot barista’s nametag says he’s Lincoln, and he offers her coffee, an extension cord when her laptop starts to die, and a sympathetic ear when she feels like complaining about the idea of having to move again. 

When Octavia leaves, she figures that if she’s going to be concerned about someone making out, it’s probably a step in the right direction to be focused on herself this time. 

(It doesn’t take her  _nearly_ as long.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does laughing at people and locking them out of the house count as matchmaking?


	42. A Little Bit in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From nathenmiller on tumblr: "CASUALLY COMES INTO YOUR ASK TO ASK FOR A SMUTTY PART 2 OF THE COOKING CLASS DRABBLE"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As stated in the prompt, this is pretty much porn that takes place in the world of chapter 37, ["Cooking Class."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9952619) Imagine it happening at some point between the main story and the very last section.

The worst thing about having a girlfriend who bakes is that  _when_ she bakes, the ingredients get everywhere _._

The best thing about having a girlfriend who bakes?

When she bakes, the ingredients get  _everywhere_.

And since, other than microwaving food, it’s pretty much the only way she can follow a recipe and not poison herself and/or others, Clarke bakes a  _lot_. 

It’s a blessing and a curse. 

Bellamy’s trying to get some grading done on the tiny portion of his counter that hasn’t been taking over by bowls, flour, salt…but it’s not going well. 

His eyes track her movements as Clarke pauses, wrinkling her nose, then brushes the back of her hand over her face. She resumes kneading the dough for the pizza—the same pizza she’d insisted she could make flawlessly when they first met a few weeks ago—but Bellamy can’t look away from the streak of flour she left behind on her nose and cheek.

“How’s Connor doing?” Clarke asks absently, and Bellamy jolts, nearly falling off the barstool. 

“What?”

“Connor,” she prompts. “You said his last assignment was even worse than his usual stuff. Is he doing any better?”

“Um, yeah,” he says, and caps his pen because this is pointless. He’s not getting anything done, and his motivation is crap anyway, because why would he want to grade when Clarke’s standing in his kitchen, hair piled on her head, dusted with flour? “Turns out it was crap on purpose—he was trying to pull that whole  _I’m so bad at history, would you please tutor me, Mel?_ thing.”

“Ah,” Clarke says sagely, and pokes the ball of pizza dough. Why, he’s not sure, but it must offer satisfying results to her because she nods, and plops it in a bowl. “That old trick. Never ends up working out.”

He grins as she dumps olive oil in the bowl with the dough, then wraps it tightly. “I don’t know, it seems to be working out well for you.”

She narrows her eyes, points at him with a gooey finger. “Hey, I wasn’t pretending to be bad at cooking. Unless you want me to scratch the pizza plan and whip something up on the stove—” 

“No,” he says hastily. “No, you’re right.” Bellamy sends her a winning smile. “Pizza sounds great.”

Clarke scoffs, turns to his sink and starts soaping up her arms. 

Bellamy can see another streak of flour from this angle, this one on the edge of her jaw, and he gives up, slipping off the barstool and circling over to her.

“I really need to remember to leave an apron here,” Clarke says, oblivious to his proximity. “I look like I’m four.” She’d had to pull on one of his old t-shirts over her clothes, and it dwarfs her, falling well down her thighs until just the hem of her floaty dress is visible.  

He wants to slide an arm around her waist, splay his hand over her stomach, move it lower. But they’ve been moving slow, mostly, since they met; he’d been stuck teaching summer school, and she’d sequestered herself in her studio one weekend, working on a commission. They’d gone to dinner a few times, spent some nights making out on his couch while Netflix played in the background; she’s taken over his kitchen to make cookies, cupcakes, even scones. And, generally, it’s been awesome. 

But they haven’t—well, they haven’t. And he doesn’t want to rush things, really. He likes being with her in any way. 

But god, he wants to touch her. 

Bellamy settles for cupping her shoulder, leaning in to press a careful kiss to that floury spot on her jaw. Clarke stills, water still running over her hands, though the dough’s long gone. 

“Don’t worry,” he says, rubbing his thumb over her shoulder. “You really don’t look like you’re four.”

She shuts off the tap and turns in his arms, and he gets to kiss the bridge of her nose, her cheek—those other places where the flour lingers, powdery and soft. Clarke wrinkles her nose, but smiles, reaching up to tangle her damp fingers in his hair. 

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he replies. She rises onto the balls of her feet and presses a long, sweet kiss to his mouth until he’s pretty sure he wobbles. Then she’s pulling back and ducking around him, gathering up the extra bowls and spoons she’d used for the dough. He feels unsteady.

“What’s—uh, what’s next on the schedule?” he asks, voice hoarse. 

“The dough needs to rise for two hours at least,” Clarke says, and dumps the dishes in the sink to soak. 

Bellamy holds in a sigh, and smiles at her. “So we need to kill some time. Well, there’s always Netflix, or we could go for a walk, or—”

“Or,” Clarke says, and pulls her makeshift apron off, taking her dress with it. “We could do something else.”

His mouth is dryer than California during fire season. Clarke’s barefoot, in his kitchen, and her bra is some lacy purple thing, her panties cotton and patterned with blue flowers. 

She’s gorgeous, and he doesn’t stand a chance. 

“Uh,” he says.

“Unless you’d rather watch  _Chopped_ or something,” Clarke says, considering. “I  _do_  love the mystery basket.”

In response, he crosses the kitchen in quick strides until he can pull her into him. She’s laughing at him when he closes his mouth over hers, but he’s cool with it. 

If their relationship seems to be 34% Clarke laughing at him, well, that sounds reasonable. He’s pretty ridiculous about her, after all.

“I’m all for kitchen sex,” she mumbles against his mouth, “but not when it’s covered in flour and goo.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, and because he doesn’t want to take his hands off her, he slides his hands down, over her back, around to grasp just below her waist. He urges her up.

“You’re going to pull something,” she tells him, and hops up anyway. 

“It’s literally a fifteen foot walk, I think I can manage,” he tells her, and does.

Barely, but he does.

She wriggles impatiently once he makes it through his bedroom doorway, slapping the light switch as she slides down his body. “Why are you so un-naked?” she demands, and pulls off his shirt.

“I thought you said we had at least two hours,” he teases her, but his voice goes funny because her hands are on the button of his jeans. “What’s the hurry?”

Clarke gives him a look. “Yeah, we have two hours, and I’ve been waiting weeks to have sex with you. I’m going to use every fucking second.” 

“Oh,” he says, and gasps when she snakes her hand into his boxer briefs to wrap around his cock, firm and warm against him. “Fuck, Clarke, I—” 

She kisses him quickly as she strokes a couple more times, then pulls her hand and mouth away at the same time. His mouth tries to follow hers, and her answering smile is sweet. Then she shoves his pants and underwear down over his hips and to the ground, and pushes his chest until he topples backward onto the bed.

“You could use your words,” he says, smirking, and kicks the clothes the rest of the way off. She beams at him as she climbs onto the bed next to him.

“Where’s the fun in that?” She traces a finger from his throat over his chest and down to his hip. Realistically, the relatively innocent touch shouldn’t make him crazier than her hand on his cock did, but she’s looking at him and biting her lip and her eyes are  _dark_ , and it’s incredible to see that she  _wants_ him. 

He turns so he’s facing her. “What do you want?”

Clarke looks at him. “Just you,” she says, and when he kisses her it’s awkward and silly because he can’t stop grinning. 

Bellamy puts his hand on her hip, his thumb rubbing over the soft cotton of her panties.

She lets out a little pleased sigh, then rolls onto her back and tugs him till he’s pressed over her. “I know I said I wanted just you, but can I add an addendum or whatever?” she asks, mouthing at his jaw. 

“Sure.” Bellamy can’t help the little thrust of his hips when she bites gently, and the way she whines and arches against him makes him feel smug.

“Cool,” she says, and tangles her fingers in his hair. “Because I also would really dig your head between my thighs. If that sounds good to you.” 

“Fuck,” he says, kissing her hard and fast and dirty, and then slides down her body to settle right where she asked for him. 

“Oh good,” Clarke breathes, “because I didn’t want to, you know, make you do anything you didn’t want to do, but this is—” she breaks off in a choked gasp when he tugs her underwear down enough so he can presses the flat of his tongue to her clit. 

“This is what?” he asks, pulling back so he can pull her underwear all the way off. 

“Awesome,” she manages, and he laughs as he kisses the crease of her thigh. “No, um. I just thought about you, like this. I thought it would be good.” 

He glances up as he licks softly, tracing her labia. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and her lips are parted as she breathes. 

“Is it?” he asks, and her eyes snap open as she huffs at him, nose wrinkling. 

“Don’t be such a dude,” she says, “of course it’s fucking good. I’d tell you what to do if you were bad at it. I’m a pro at eating girls out. But you’re doing great.” 

He snorts and presses his tongue into her, tasting her, and her head falls back against the bed. 

“You’re doing, ah,  _really_ great,” she stutters, and when Bellamy starts to use his fingers too, she moans as she shifts restlessly. 

His fingers in her make soft wet noises as they slide in and out, but they’re nearly drowned out by Clarke’s own moans and gasps and the occasional “ _fuck, Bellamy._ _”_ When she’s shivering and trembling and Bellamy is about to fucking lose his mind because he’s harder than stone and she’s the best thing he’s seen, tasted, and heard in his entire life, he pulls her clit into his mouth, sucking carefully as he smoothes his tongue over her.

She comes with a long string of  _fucks_ , hips straining and thighs clamping around his head, and Bellamy uses his fingers to keep fucking her through it until she relaxes, panting.

“Fuck,” she repeats. “Yeah, don’t worry. You’re good at that.”

“I wasn’t worrying about it,” he says, amused, “but thanks.” 

“You’re welcome,” Clarke says lazily, then pats the bed next to her head. “Come up here.” When he does, she bosses him around until he’s sitting up with his back against the headboard. His cock bobs a little, still hard, and he’s almost embarrassed for a second until he sees the way she’s looking at him.

“I like your dick,” she says, conversational, and he laughs until her hands find his cock, and his head hits the wall behind his headboard with a strangled groan. His own hands fist in the bedding next to her—she’s still lying down, flushed and lazy from her orgasm. Clarke grins wickedly, stroking slowly, and her thumb does something that makes him nearly choke.

“Okay, um, this is great,” he says, strangled, “but I’d really like to—” He breaks off and lets out an embarrassing groan when she swirls her palm over the head. 

“Fuck? Awesome, okay,” Clarke says, and lets go so she can sit up straddle him. 

“Shit,” Bellamy says, hands going to her hips to steady her as she leans over to rummage in his nightstand. She’s perched on his thighs, and he can feel her, hot and damp against his own skin. 

She’s going to kill him, and he’s going to enjoy every second of it. 

“Here,” she says, tossing him a condom; he fumbles to catch it and open it as she finally unhooks her bra and tosses it away. 

“God, I  _knew_  you had a thing for my boobs,” Clarke says, and takes the condom from his suddenly frozen fingers. 

“Well—” Bellamy tries, helpless, to defend himself, but— “Yeah, okay. Your boobs are amazing. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Clarke says, and finishes rolling the condom on. “They  _are_  amazing. Just do something about it.”

“Okay,” he says, and cups them both in his hands, his thumbs circling her nipples until she whines. Then he ducks, sucks one into his mouth until she lets out a little whine. Then the other, until she’s rocking her hips.

“Shit, shit, okay,” Clarke says. “Wait.” Bellamy stops, pulls back. 

“Yeah? You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, and rises up onto her knees just long enough to line herself up with his cock, then sits firmly, sliding over him. “Just wanted to do that,” she says, and cups his face in her hands as she kisses him, tugs at his lip with her teeth, strokes the roof of his mouth with her tongue. She starts to fuck him, rising up slowly and then lowering herself fast and hard so he bottoms out within her. He does his best to match her rhythm, but  _fuck_ , she’s hot and soft and perfect and he knows it’s too early to say he loves this girl but he’s definitely at least a little bit in love with her. Like all the time, not just now that they’re finally having sex, but also especially when she moves her mouth to his ear, and he can feel her hot breath against his skin as they both breathe heavily. 

He’s pretty sure his eyes roll back into his head at some point.

“I—Bellamy,” she says, and grips his shoulders so she can lean back a little. The change in angle makes her clench around him with every thrust, and her hips start moving erratically.

“I need—I need—” she tries, then breaks off with a groan; Bellamy wraps an arm around her and moves forward until she’s on her back on the bed, head by the footboard, and he ends every firm thrust with a circular grind of his hips. Her legs wrap tightly around him, and she combs her fingers through his hair as he sucks a bruise into the skin of her neck. 

“Fuck, Clarke, I—” he chokes, and then manages to fit a hand between them to rub at her clit because he is about half a thrust away from coming himself and he wants to feel her fall apart around him first.

She inhales sharply, and then she’s coming, thighs locking even tighter around his waist as he feels her muscles flutter and spasm around him. He immediately loses it, hips jerking into hers, and he can barely think enough through the heady waves of pleasure to keep himself propped up with one hand so he doesn’t crush her.

His other hand is still trapped between them, twisted at an awkward angle and cramping, when he catches his breath enough to realize he still has a body with a hand that can cramp.

“Ow,” he says, and rolls off of her, shaking his hand. 

“Did I break you?” Clarke asks. 

“Yeah. I think I’m dead,” he says. “I think you killed me.”

She reaches over, pats his chest. “Nah. You just need some carbs.”

He laughs and hugs her to him. She hugs him back, hard, then puts up with the embrace for another minute before she’s shoving at him to get away and complaining that he’s making her too hot. 

“You weren’t complaining about that a few minutes ago,” he says, leering at her.

“Oh my god,” Clarke says. “Maybe I  _will_ kill you.”

He snorts, then admires the view as she stands up and wanders to the bathroom.

He’s taken care of the condom and pulled his underwear back on by the time she come back, and Bellamy watches, bemused, as she casually rifles through his dresser drawers until she finds his t-shirts. 

“Hey, I have this shirt too,” she remarks as she pulls on the faded  _Han Shot First_ shirt Octavia’d given him years ago. 

“Wow, you’re a nerd,” he tells her. 

“Shut up, we have matching nerd shirts,” she says, and sits on his lap. His arms go around her. “It’s awesome. You’re, like, beyond lucky to have found me.”

Bellamy grins, kisses her nose because she’s wrinkled it again. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“As long as you know it,” Clarke decides, and makes his head spin with a long, dirty kiss. Then, when he’s so hot and bothered that all he can do is wonder how much time they have left before they have to deal with the pizza dough, and if he can convince Clarke to get back out of the  _Han Shot First_ shirt, she smiles at him angelically and speaks. 

“Oh, and you’re coming with me to dinner at my mom’s next week.” 

He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “Wait, what?”

“She wants to meet you. Or re-meet you. I guess I talk about you a lot, and she wants us to come over for dinner. Together.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Is she a better cook than you are?”

Clarke pinches his side and he yelps. “No, she’s not. Dinner will probably be takeout from Gironda’s.” 

He heaves a dramatic sigh. “Fine.” She snuggles into him at that, and doesn’t make any move to stop his hand as it creeps beneath the hem of the t-shirt. 

There’s really no point in arguing about dinner with her mother when he knows he’s just going to end up going.

He is, after all, already at least a little bit in love with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! ;)


	43. Statistics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From wereadtoliveathousandlives on tumblr: "If you'd told her this morning that her day was going to end up like this, she probably would've just stayed in bed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of those prompts where the prompt is supposed to be the first sentence of a fic, and I'm supposed to write five more sentences. But I can't just write five sentences because I fail, so have a little ficlet.

> _If you'd told her this morning that her day was going to end up like this, she probably would've just stayed in bed._

But instead, she made the mistake of only hitting snooze twice before getting up, getting dressed, and getting stuck on the side of the road a good twenty miles from the wedding she’s supposed to be photographing _._

“What kind of person stops to help with a flat when they don’t know how to change a tire?” she wonders aloud. The guy who’d stopped to help her–and, okay, he’s cute; all broad shoulders and freckles and a gorgeous voice, which he’d used to introduce himself as Bellamy–gives her a dirty look and tries to start his car again. 

No luck. “The kind of guy who doesn’t want poor little blonde girls to get murdered on the side of road because  _they_ don’t know how to change a tire either,” Bellamy grumbles. “There are  _statistics_. You were less likely to get murdered if I waited for a tow truck with you.” 

Clarke squints at him. “How do I know  _you’re_ not the murderer?” she asks. “What if you’re trying to lull me into a false sense of security with your general ineptitude?”

“What kind of side-of-the-road murderer wears a tux when he meets his victims?” he replies, brow furrowed. “That doesn’t seem very practical.” 

“False sense of security,” Clarke emphasizes again, and she can see the grin he’s fighting to conceal beneath a scowl. 

“Or I could be going to my best friend’s wedding,” he says, “only when I stopped to help a stranger on the side of the road my own car crapped out too.” 

Clarke perks up. “Wait, the Miller-Green wedding?” 

Bellamy looks at her in surprise. “Yeah, actually.” He notices the camera bag slung over her shoulder. “Oh.”

Clarke smiles. “Yeah. Oh.” 

When they finally get to the wedding, Clarke has to hurry to get in pre-ceremony shots, but before she runs she turns to Bellamy. “Hey. I owe you a dance later. To thank you for not letting me get murdered.” 

His slightly stupid grin sticks in her mind after that, and Clarke catches herself smiling at nothing more than once.

On second thought, maybe today isn’t so bad.


	44. Retail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the-girl-who-nerded on tumblr: "How about Bellarke working retail together and having to get up at ungodly hours to restock the store and staying late to put everything back and they always try to outdo each other and their manager gets tired of it and threatens to not let them work together any more and they pretend their not upset by the prospect but they totally are"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Total disclaimer, I am tired and I asked for and filled this prompt while tipsy. It is a Tipsy Prompt.™ It may be utterly ridiculous, but I had fun. :D

“Do you think this is my color?” Bellamy demands. It’s eleven at night, and she and Bellamy are both clopening––meaning they’re closing tonight, and have to be back early enough to open, too. 

Clarke glances over to him while she continues to put the dressing room go-backs on hangers; the peach colored dress is held up to his cheek as he drapes the garment across his body. 

“Oh, absolutely,” she says. “But that neckline is a tragedy. You need to show more of your chest or no girl is going to want anything to do with you.” 

“That’s offensive,” he says, slinging the dress’s hanger over his arm and moving to her side to start on separating the men’s go-backs from the boys’. “I have a lot more going for me than my looks, Clarke.” 

“Like what?” she asks. 

“Like how much faster than you I am at go-backs,” he retorts, and steals her cart from her.

“Dick,” she mutters as he starts hanging all the garments in their proper places, and ignores the fact that, technically, he’s doing her work for her.

* * *

They’ve clopened three nights in a row, and then the next week schedule comes out and they’re fucking  _signing_. That means showing up to start their shift at four fucking forty-five in the morning on Sunday. All of the sale signs throughout the superstore need to be replaced, either by different sales or returned to their normal retail prices, by the time the store opens at seven a.m.

“Do you think,” Clarke says as she jogs toward the doors at four-fifteen Sunday, “that bomb threats against the store are, like, taken really seriously?” She wants to  _die_ , she is so fucking tired.

Bellamy huffs, breath coming out in visible little puffs in the cold morning air, and glances at her while he tries to beat her to the entrance. “Probably,” he says, “but you should try it out anyway. See what happens.”

Clarke flips him off and throws herself into a fucking painful sprint. She ends up slapping the “NO ENTRY” sign on the exit doors just a second before Bellamy does, and through her wheezing pants she crows, “Take  _that,_ Blake!”

He’s pretty pathetic, honestly. His legs are a good half a foot longer than hers, and she still beat his ass. 

Suddenly, Clarke nearly topples over, which is annoying considering how much she was enjoying Bellamy’s sour expression while she leaned on the doors, catching her breath.

The manager stands back to let them into the store, and Clarke shuffles inside, sighing. Bellamy follows, pushing his hair back from his face, and Clarke totally doesn’t notice the sharp line of his jaw when he yawns.

Indra looks at them, exhaustion clear on her face as she locks the door behind them. “You two realize you don’t get overtime just because you voluntarily showed up for your shifts half an hour early.”

“It’s his fault,” Clarke insists the same moment Bellamy blames her.

* * *

Octavia Blake shows up in her line at checkout. She only has one item, and Clarke grins because she is going to fucking  _win,_ and all because Bellamy’s own flesh and blood betrayed him in their “who can get the most people through their checkout line in fifteen minutes” contest. 

“I knew you liked me better,” Clarke declares, and scans the DVD Octavia’s buying. “Your brother’s basically unlovable, right? You can tell me,” she adds sympathetically. “My dad’s a psychologist. I’m predisposed to being a great listener.” 

Octavia just rolls her eyes and gestures at checkout stand four, Bellamy’s line. “You tell me.” 

Clarke looks at the long line of women, and the stupidly charming smiles he’s directing at them, and frowns. 

“He’s just lucky his face is like... _that_ ,” Clarke decides, and ignores the curdle of jealousy in her belly and Octavia’s knowing smirk. 

* * *

“This is ridiculous,” Kane says, and he sounds tired and annoyed and basically this is starting like every conversation Clarke’s had with her mother since her parents got divorced and Clarke decided to move out into her own apartment. 

 _You don’t need to work retail, Clarke_ , her mother likes to say, exasperation weighing down her voice.  _This is not your life._

She likes to say that, that  _this is not your life_ bit, as if Clarke’s life is a disaster just because she’s working retail and supporting herself while she takes classes at the community college. Clarke feels pretty awesome when she thinks about that, honestly. And frankly, Clarke’s not even all that impressive; she knows Bellamy is taking classes, working, and putting his sister through her own general education requirements at the same time. 

There’s nothing disastrous about making a living and going to school like this. 

“You two are getting out of hand,” Kane continues, and fuck, if he’s going to continue like this in that voice Clarke’s going to try and get his number for her mother. 

Bellamy fidgets in the seat next to her, though, and she immediately feels guilty. Because, in a way, her mother is right. This is not her life, because if she fails, her mother or her father will take her in and support her. 

This  _is_ Bellamy’s life, and he needs this job because he has his little sister to support, and no one to support either of them if he fails. He doesn’t have the luxury of being allowed to fail. 

Clarke adopts a contrite expression, at least until she hears what the hell Kane wanted to talk to them both about.

“You’re being disruptive,” he states, “rushing customers through the store, racing go-backs down the aisles, coming in so early and staying so late that shift managers have to put in for overtime.”

Clarke fidgets a little too at that, and a glance at Bellamy shows her his cheeks are glowing red. 

“Now I don’t know what kind of,” Kane wiggles his hands at them in a vague gesture, “ _nonsense_ is going on between you two, but as of right now you’re being put on probation.” 

Clarke swallows, glances again. Bellamy’s jaw is clenched, and he’s staring at his knees.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Kane gripes. “Not official probation, Blake. But you and Griffin are going to be separated until you can prove you’re behaving like model employees.” 

 _Shit_ , Clarke thinks.

“Fine,” she says lazily. “Great.”

“I’d actually like to thank you,” Bellamy says, “I’m pretty sick of her, honestly.”

* * *

The next week––god, it fucking  _sucks_. She clopens with Maya, who is sweet and cute and Clarke considers hitting on her, just for something to do, but she has a feeling Maya would just blush and/or file a mildly-worded complaint with HR. 

So she doesn’t, and her shifts are utterly  _dull,_ and she nearly falls asleep at the wheel on her drive home because all she can think about is her bed, instead of how much she wants Bellamy Blake  _in_ her bed, which is what usually keeps her going through clopening shifts. 

Clarke does run into him, once, in the breakroom. He’s staring, mesmerized, at his food on the rotating tray in the microwave as it heats. 

“Bellamy!” she says loudly when she’s been standing next to him for a good two minutes. He nearly falls over, which is adorable. 

“Fuck,” he says, then looks around, eyes bleary, for a manager, or Cage because that dick likes to snitch to the managers about stupid shit like the occasional curse word. 

Thankfully, they’re alone. 

“Oh,” he says, and clears his throat. “Uh, I didn’t know you were here.” 

“They put me in softlines,” Clarke says, and Bellamy nods. If somebody were put in softlines, they were stuck doing clothing and shoes and dressing room go-backs, and the chances of them ever even seeing someone  _not_ in the same area during their shift was about 2%. 

“I’m at checkout,” he says. “I’ll be working softlines tomorrow, though. Opening.”

Clarke smiles faintly. “I’m closing tomorrow. Hardlines.” Baby clothes, electronics, toys, food. 

Bellamy shrugs, staring at the microwave again.

“This...this kind of sucks, doesn’t it,” he asks, conversational.

“God, it’s the  _worst_ ,” Clarke says, and Bellamy cracks a smile. “Sterling won’t even race carts in the parking lot with me, Bellamy! This is serious.”

“Maybe if you’d stop trying to get people to race carts in the parking lot, we’d be off unofficial probation,” Bellamy points out, and Clarke wants to tell him how fucking wrong he is and also make out with him. 

But she doesn’t, because that sounds wildly stupid and awesome and absolutely like something she shouldn’t do, and instead steals forkfuls of his weird, spicy leftovers while he complains and pushes the tupperware closer to her.

* * *

Their first shift back together is...well, it’s interesting.

Kane’s there, at least at the beginning, so Clarke pretends she doesn’t even  _know_ a Bellamy, let alone the Bellamy Blake who’s working the checkout stand right next to hers. Anybody named Bellamy is totally lame, in her opinion, and totally not someone she would make out with and/or marry, given the chance. 

And then Kane leaves.

“Thank god,” Clarke says, and because there is literally  _one_ person in the entire fucking store, turns off the light of her checkout stand and logs out of the register. Bellamy grins as she hops up onto his conveyor belt, and Clarke beams.

“I’m going to kick your ass in go-backs tomorrow,” she says cheerily.

Bellamy, because he’s an asshole, pushes the button that makes the conveyor belt move. Clarke shrieks as the belt moves beneath her, then glares as it tows her closer to him. 

“You wish,” he tells her. “I’ve been practicing, you know. Murphy doesn’t believe in corporations and refuses to actually try to finish his shit before closing. So I’ve been doing all of the shit on our shifts.”

“Like that’s any different than usual,” Clarke teases, and then she blanches a little.  She doesn’t––it’s not like she doesn’t try to do her work, or that she wouldn’t finish on time, but Bellamy  _does_ like to take a lot of her stuff when they’re on shift. But she doesn’t––

They don’t  _admit_ it. Or they don’t admit it to each other, that they do each other’s work, but Clarke’s definitely accidentally-or-on-purpose admitted it to her best friend, which she’s regretted ever since as Raven takes every possible opportunity to bring up how Clarke’s clearly in love with him, and Bellamy with her.

Which is  _not_ true. Like, at all.

Mostly. 

“Yeah, well. I’m not the only one,” he mutters, but glances up at her from under his lashes. They’re such long ones, too, pretty and dark against his cheeks and  _fuck._

She flushes, and then her hip hits the bumper at the end of the conveyor belt, and she’s only inches from him. From Bellamy, and his stupid pretty eyelashes and his stupid pretty face. 

“You going to check me out or what?” she asks, and she means for it to be flippant, silly even, but she sounds fucking  _breathless_ and stupid, and––

Bellamy just looks at her for a long moment, then he fucking  _grins_ and reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ear. 

“Well. Since you asked so nicely,” he says, and leans over to kiss her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think also I use more profanity in my writing when I am sleepy and/or tipsy. It is a possibility.


	45. Atlas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From apanoplyofsong on tumblr: "Does it count as a prompt if I say literally anything involving Bellarke and dogs because I know what I'm about??"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Tipsy Prompt.™

“Look at him, Bellamy.”

Bellamy clenches his eyes shut. “No.”

“ _Look_. Be a man, you dipshit, and look at him.” 

“There’s no call for that kind of foul fucking language, Griffin,” Bellamy gripes, and cracks his eyelids open. “ _Fuck_.” 

The puppy is chubby. It has  _rolls_. Its paws are enormous, and its ears are like Dumbo ears. Even as he watches, Clarke pulls the black ears in front of the puppy’s eyes, like a blindfold. 

“Oh my god,” he says. “Did you literally ask for the fattest puppy they had?”

Clarke gives him a strange look. “He was the runt.”

“He was the–– _fuck_ , what kind of mutant dog parents did this thing have?” Bellamy demands. “If this is the runt, what the hell did the others look like?”

Clarke smiles serenely and holds out the pup to him. Its tail is tucked between its hind legs, and it whimpers a little, hanging there in the air and looking bashful. 

“No,” he says, but it’s weaker this time. “I don’t––I don’t want it.”

“I think he looks like an Atlas,” Clarke says, and deposits the puppy in his lap.

“I hate you,” Bellamy says, and the black lab puppy lets out a little doggy sigh and rests his head on Bellamy’s thigh. 

“You love me,” she counters, and scoots closer so she can watch the small dog snuggle into his lap. 

“Fuck,” Bellamy mutters. “You are––you are the  _worst_.” 

Dogs are just money-wasting, time-wasting, shoe-chewing nightmares, and he––

“You  _love_ me,” she repeats, singsong, and Bellamy slumps. He does.

“I love you,” he agrees, and rests a careful hand on the puppy’s back. His tail thumps with joy at the touch, and Bellamy has pretended he didn’t  _really_ want a dog since Octavia was born and his mother told him they could afford a dog or a sister, not both, and the sister was nonnegotiable. 

But of course, Clarke figured it out. She figures out everything about him, sooner or later. Probably because he’s transparent as fuck around her because he’s stupid in love with Clarke Griffin, but still. 

She gets him. 

“You’re taking him out when he needs to pee at night,” Bellamy says, scratching gently behind the soft Dumbo ears. The puppy gazes up at him, adoring, and Bellamy is––god, he is not going to fucking  _cry_ , this is ridiculous. 

“No, I’m not,” Clarke replies, and kisses him on the cheek. “And I love you too, babe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	46. Love You Much Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From apanoplyofsong on tumblr: "I feel like I should keep up the tradition and prompt you about dogs but it feels like that would take so much ENERGY right now" + "wtf is that thing and what are you doing with it?" A Tipsy Prompt.™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from the song by The Hush Sound because I do what I want. Also, tipsy.

Clarke's cat  _loves_ Bellamy, and she thinks it's radically unfair.

"Like, what the fuck?" she says, gesturing at Calliope with her tumbler of coke and whiskey. "Look at that attention-mongering jerkface. She should love  _me_ like that, not you."

Bellamy doesn't look away from the television. He's got the PS3 controller in his hand and he's rapidly flipping through movies on Netflix.

It's date night, which means they refuse to go out on dates when there are twenty-three restaurants within delivery distance and a near infinite number of choices on Netflix. Really, they're being very responsible adults: they're saving money, and they're also not going to get arrested for public indecency when they start groping each other on the couch.

It nearly happened once. They're still banned from the local science museum for another fifteen months.

"It really doesn't matter," Bellamy says, and seems to deliberate between a documentary about elk and something that Clarke guesses combines both mistaken identity and the Christmas season in an amazingly terrible film.

"Christmas," Clarke tells him, and he obligingly presses play and settles back into the couch.

Clarke frowns when Calliope, already purring, starts to butt her head against Bellamy's hip. "Hussy," she tells her, then pushes the cat off the couch so  _she_ can drape herself over Bellamy instead.

"You're jealous of your cat," Bellamy tells her, amused, and starts stroking her hair.

"Yeah, well, you don't even  _like_ her. I feed her and spend too much money on toys that make weird noises and I even buy her sensitive stomach cat food. Does she rub up on my legs whenever I walk in the door? No!"

"Babe," Bellamy starts, but Clarke's on a roll.

"Does she climb up on my lap when I'm trying to get her to cuddle?  _No_ , but all you have to do is hold out your hand and she's all over you!"

"I hold out my hand because I'm trying to keep her away," Bellamy replies desperately. "It's a barricade. I'm allergic to her!"

"She doesn't care!" Clarke retorts. "I pet her all the time and she couldn't care less. You pet her  _once_ in  _three weeks_ and she won't stop using your feet as petting posts. She loves you and hates me and she's a  _traitor_."

Bellamy pauses long enough that Clarke turns her head to peer up at him. He looks thoughtful.

"What?" she says, and someone in the movie finds out they're Santa Claus's long-lost great-niece. Or something; it's October and Clarke's not ready to be invested in terrible Christmas movies quite yet, so she's not quite paying attention.

"I ignore her," her boyfriend replies slowly, "and I try to keep her away from me. I only give her attention when I get a strange urge."

"Yeah, okay Blake, stop narrating your life. Only Morgan Freeman can get away with that; you're just embarrassing yourself."

Bellamy gives her a dirty look, but before he can reply Clarke's jaw drops and she sits up.

"Oh my god. You're a cat!"

Bellamy sighs.

* * *

It's a lot easier to stomach Calliope's preference for Bellamy once they've both realized that Bellamy, in essence, treats Calliope as a cat treats a human. She must sense some kind of kinship with him, while Clarke is basically a cat groupie. She can't control how much or how often she demonstrates her affection for cats.

It's still kind of rude, but. That's what she gets for loving her stupid cat.

She sulks a little, but she's mostly over it.

Mostly.

Then it's a week later, and Bellamy texts her to meet him out at the parking spot. Their apartment has a single car garage that they battle over, and Clarke had won that day when she got home an hour before him. The loser has to park in the assigned space in the lot, which is uncovered and surrounded by oversized SUVs.

Clarke slips into her flip flops and pulls Bellamy's old university hoodie over her head before heading out. He must have gotten the value size thing of cat litter from Costco, which she always tells him not to; the savings are not worth the muscular strain of trying to carry that stupid thing up the stairs to their apartment.

She finds him outside of his old Toyota, and he does not have cat litter with him.

"What the fuck is that thing and what are you doing with it?" Clarke says. It's wiggly and loud, yipping in excitement as Bellamy holds it out to her.

"Meet Minerva," he says, and follows Clarke as she backs away. "Our new dog."

"Excuse me?" She stares at him, at the dog. It's gazing at her, mouth open in joyous pants.

"I already yelled at her for peeing in the car," Bellamy tells her, mild disgust on his face, and thrusts the dog into her arms. "She's guaranteed to like you better than me now. So, you know. Pet-wise, we're even."

"That's not––oh my god," Clarke says, helpless. The dog licks her chin and even sneaks her tongue into Clarke's mouth when she opens it to yell at Bellamy.

Clarke sputters and makes gagging noises, holding the dog away from her. "Oh my god, what have you done."

Bellamy shrugs and refuses to take the dog back. "I already paid the additional pet deposit with the housing office."

Clarke groans, and Minerva introduces her to her tongue again.

* * *

"But I don't  _want_ her to love me better," Clarke says, despairing, and Bellamy laughs at her. Minerva is curled up in Clarke's lap, Calliope in his, and Bellamy is sneezing while the cat purrs and the dog nibbles on the hem of Clarke's sleep shorts. "Let's give her back. Shit, let's give Calliope back too. Buy one get one free. Somebody somewhere wants a slobbery dog and a rude cat."

"Nobody wants a slobbery dog and a rude cat," Bellamy says, and she droops, but pets Minerva gently anyway. "But it's okay, Clarke," Bellamy adds, soothing, laughter in his eyes. "She might love you better, but I love you the  _best_."

Clarke kicks him and tells him she loves him too.


	47. Laughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From tierannasaurusrex on tumblr: "TIPSY PROMPT: GROUNDER BELLAMY"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, idk. Tipsy Prompt.™

The  _Trigedakru_ had apparently watched in equal parts astonishment and amusement when they’d landed; when one of their scouts had reported that some of the delinquents started using the river as a bathroom upstream of where they were taking their drinking water, the earthborn took pity on them.

Clarke can only be in so many places at once, okay? Not everyone paid attention in earth skills and it’s very hard to tell teenagers where they can and cannot take a piss. 

So it’s kind of a relief, after it stops being a big fucking shock that there are people on earth, when the  _Trigedakru_ tells them in no uncertain terms that they are coming home with them before they all die. 

Bellamy is one of the earthborn sent to escort them to TonDC, and honestly, Clarke’s first, second, and seventh impressions of Bellamy  _kom Trigedakru_  is that he’s kind of a dick. 

“Your people in the sky must be very primitive if they don’t know not to shit where they drink,” he says easily while they trudge through the woods. It’s still weird, walking on the uneven surface where things rudely fall from the trees just to trip her up. She glares up at him, and promptly trips over a root. 

He laughs at her until she can see the sheen of tears in his eyes, and she tells him to go fuck himself.

* * *

It’s more of the same that convinces her he’s a dick, albeit a stupidly pretty one. She’ll do something he thinks is hilarious, like try to convince Jasper it’s a bad idea to try to go hunting with the  _Trigedakru_ when he’s barely mastered using the knives they use to cut the meat down here. 

Meat was not really a thing in space, so. They’re all getting used to it. 

Jasper is getting used to it at a slower pace than some of the others. 

“Please,” Clarke says. “You will die. You will die out there in the woods, and I’m busy here  _not_  dying and you will bleed out way before I can get to you and save your stupid life.”

Jasper glowers, blusters, generally makes a fool of himself, and Bellamy laughs at her until he starts to cough and wheeze for breath.

Clarke gives him a dirty look. “Too bad I hate you too much to try to help you through that asthma attack.” 

Bellamy laughs again, then wheezes painfully, and Clarke stalks back toward Nyko’s cabin for training. 

“Go ahead and die, Jasper!” she yells as she leaves. “See if I fucking care.”

Maybe he’ll take Bellamy to the grave with him. Like, he’ll stab himself with a spear, and when he tries to yank it out it goes flying at Bellamy. Right through his beautiful, awful chiseled chest. 

Clarke hums at the thought.

* * *

She does her best to ignore him and/or stick to fantasizing about making a voodoo doll of him (what? She paid plenty of attention in Earth Culture class. She knows how it would work), but weeks after being integrated into TonDC, she’s trying to stoke the fire one cold autumn night when Bellamy snickers. 

“You’re going to freeze to death at this rate,” he tells her, and she feels her face contort in irritation.

“Or I could just set  _you_  on fire,” Clarke snaps, and jabs at a log with a long stick while she pretends it’s his face. His stupid, pretty, dark, freckly face. That she doesn’t want to lick. At all. “Nice and toasty.”

“You could,” Bellamy grants, “but I bet we can think of a much nicer way to keep you warm.”

She stiffens, then slowly straightens to look at him. “Excuse me?” she demands flatly. 

He grins at her. “You heard me.”

Clarke narrows her eyes at him. 

Bellamy starts to look a little nervous, which she appreciates. All of the other kids from the Skybox have found homes with other families, made friends with the young people of the village, and no one really has any reason to  _listen_ to her anymore, let alone be wary of her. Which is good, mostly, but it’s weirdly kind of nice that Bellamy seems wary of her now. 

She tries not think about what it means about her, as a person, that she likes him being kind of scared about her. 

Whatever. Nobody’s perfect. 

“ _Excuse_ me,” she repeats.

“I just meant...” he trails off, looking suddenly bashful. “Um. I have an extra cloak?”

“Your extra cloak is nicer than a warm fire?”

“That’s not––I mean––uh. Yes?”

Clarke squints at him, realization dawning. “You’re terrible at this.”

He flushes. “Well–– _you’re_  terrible at stoking that fire.”

She pokes the log one more time, and the flames lick up the wood, consuming it with cheerful crackling noises. 

“Apparently not,” she says, and tosses the stick in the fire to burn. 

She turns, presses a hand to his chest, trails it down toward his ragged leather belt. He’s holding himself tensely, but she feels a shiver travel through his body. “Apparently not,” she repeats, and this time, she’s the one that laughs while she walks away.

* * *

“You’re right,” he says the next morning, when they’re in line for breakfast. He’d found her there, and had glared at Wells when her friend protested him cutting in line for the food. Clarke doesn’t see the big deal; it’s probably porridge,  _again_ , which is better than soy packs but worse than panther. Clarke does not enjoy it.

“Yes,” Clarke agrees. “About what?”

“I’m terrible at this,” Bellamy says, seemingly dejected, and Clarke laughs so hard she snorts, which is when Bellamy kisses her because he’s a strange earthborn boy with strange earthborn turn-ons, like hot girls from space laughing at him.

Well. Maybe they’re better suited than she originally thought.  

“Damn it,” he grumbles; she’s still giggling as he pulls away. “I was hoping that would shut you up.” 

Clarks rolls her eyes, calls him a dick––fondly, this time, because he’s a dick but apparently he’s  _her_ dick, and she pulls his mouth back down to hers. 

“Gross,” Wells says, disgusted, and they both laugh at him together. 


	48. How You Get the Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From madjm on tumblr: "Clarke inadvertently challenges Bellamy to try to hit on her by laughing at the fact that he has no game." Tipsy Prompt.™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! Title from Taylor Swift because I still do what I want

Bellamy’s been left for better prospects no fewer than three times tonight, and Clarke’s torn between feeling sorry for him and being amazed. Also maybe between feeling a little bit satisfied because he is  _her_ hot, funny, dumb friend and those girls don’t deserve him even a little bit, but mostly between the two things. She swears.

“How have you ever gotten a girl to fuck you?” Clarke wonders aloud, and steals a sip of his whiskey and Coke because hers is empty and it is a tragedy. “Scratch that. How have you ever even gotten a girl to kiss you? That was pathetic.  _You’re_ pathetic.”

“Fuck you, Clarke,” Bellamy says mildly, and steals both his drink back  _and_ the basket of peanuts she’d been reaching for.

“Is it because you’re a nerd?” she asks, sympathetic. “I’ve been there. When I was twelve or something like that. You’ve just got to own it, Bellamy. Like, get some chunky glasses and pretend you’ve never been to a gym. It’s just that your body’s naturally like that. Girls love that stuff.”

Bellamy glances down at himself. “My body  _is_ naturally like that.”

“See? That’s a great start,” she soothes, and waves her hand in the air dismissively. Then Clarke brightens when that seems to summon the bartender with a fresh cocktail for her. 

“Magic! I told you I’m a witch,” Clarke says, and Bellamy sighs. 

“I ordered that for you ten minutes ago.”

Clarke narrows her eyes, partly because she doesn’t remember, because she’s done with finals and also a little drunk, and partly because she’s having trouble seeing him clearly,  _also_ because she’s done with finals and also a little drunk.

She’s really, really glad to be done with finals. 

“When?” she demands. “When did you have time? Wait, was it between those times you had no game with Jessica and then had no game with Lauren? Ooh, wait, or was it when you had no game with Maria from Stats class?”

“Maria from Stats class was totally into me,” Bellamy argues, and Clarke frowns.

“She left you to go over and hit on the organist from the church on Seventh Street.”

“Yeah, well––” Bellamy sneers at her. “He’s probably a really nice guy, so.”

“Ooh, wow,” Clarke replies. “Yeah, I should just suck it, obviously, because your point is so much more valid than mine.”

“I hate you,” Bellamy says.

Clarke pats him on the shoulder, then leans against it because gravity is hard and so are the muscles in his arms, and she hates the former and loves the latter. 

“I know,” she says, consoling. “It’s hard not to hate someone who has so much more game than you do.”

“Screw you,” he says without heat. “I have so much game. Like, so much.”

“Nah,” Clarke says. “You’re Bellamy. You’re very pretty but your looks are pretty much all you’ve got going for you. Like, your personality? I lied before; owning your nerdiness would  _never_ work. Way too much in there about Ancient Ostia versus Pompeii, and how you would totally win at  _Teen Jeopardy!_  even though you’re  _twenty-six,_ Bellamy, you can’t go on  _Teen Jeopardy!_ and how you know Pluto’s technically not a real planet but you miss it anyway.”

Bellamy flushes, and she grins up at him. 

Then he moves his arm so she’s somehow wrapped up in it, leaning against his chest instead of his stupid hard arm muscles.

His chest is stupid and hard, too, so she doesn’t bother to move, but she is a little confused.

“Bell,” she says, and he looks down at her. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his lips curved gently in something in between a pout and a smirk. She’s not sure how that works, but––it works on him.

_Fuck_ , does it work on him. 

This is not...this is not a good idea, nor something she was planning for. Her best friend should not be practicing this weird pout/smirk combo on her; it is not  _fair_ and she protests. 

She snuggles closer. “Bell, did you know you have no game?”

“Yeah?” he says, and dips his head so his lips brush against her ear when he whispers. “Why don’t you tell me about that?”

She shivers a little, which is embarrassing, and she’s also, like, embarrassingly into this. She probably needs to leave and go home, and probably get herself off if she plans to sleep, and if not, she definitely needs to at least change her panties because her stupid best friend is stupid hot even if he’s the worst at girls. 

She should give him some tips, she muses. She’s pretty good at girls. 

Then his fingers, the ones that are attached to the hand attached to the arm draped around her shoulders, brush the top of her breast and she discards  _giving Bellamy tips about girls_  as a terrible idea. 

“Um,” she squeaks instead, and Bellamy’s neck is mottled red when she looks but he’s looking back at her all intense and moody-looking and shit, and––

“Sorry,” he says, voice rough. “I didn’t––uh, I didn’t meant to do that. Exactly.”

He’s super awkward about it, and pretty much has negative game at this point, on an objective scale, but somehow on the Clarke scale he’s got way too much game.

“What did you mean to do?” Clarke asks, trying to distract herself, and Bellamy gives her a lopsided grin that has her insides flopping around in an undignified manner. 

“This,” he says, and brushes his knuckles against her collarbone, ghosting over the skin bared by her celebratory low-cut “fuck you college, I’m done with finals!!” top. 

She gets goosebumps.

So she pulls away, and nearly falls off her stool. 

When she straightens, wincing, Bellamy is grinning at her, delight all over his face. 

“I’ve got game,” he announces. “Admit it, Griffin!” He jabs her lightly in the chest, below her collarbone but above where he’s semi-groped her. “I’ve got more game that you can handle.” 

Clarke rolls her eyes, ignoring the burning of the flush in her cheeks. “Get over yourself. It only counts as legitimate game if you get the girl, Blake.”

He’s doing a weird victory shuffle/dance in his barstool, but pauses at her words. “It only counts if I get the girl?”

She scoffs. “Obviously. You’ve got to back it up, Bellamy, get real  _results_ with your game, or else––”

He kisses her then, hands sliding into her hair, licking into her mouth so she can taste the whiskey on his tongue, and she lets out an embarrassing whimpering sound that has him scooping her right off her stool and into his lap. Which is, you know, fine, cool, whatever, so what if she can feel him getting hard beneath her and can feel the vibration of his own desperate sounds as they rumble through his chest? 

Then the bartender sets the tray holding their bill on the counter in front of them with a decisive click, glaring, and tells them to get a room. 

Clarke pants a little, staring at Bellamy, and he lowers his lashes, almost shy. 

Finally, she says, “Wow.”

“Wow?” He echoes, sounding hopeful and maybe a little terrified. 

“ _Wow_ ,” Clarke repeats. “Bellamy...

“What?” he asks, edgy when she doesn’t immediately respond. 

Clarke licks her lips and then beams at him. “Yeah, okay. You might have a  _little_ game.”

Bellamy’s arms are around her waist, holding her still, which is good because her getting of his lap at this exact moment in time would be embarrassing for the both of them. “You said it only counts as legitimate game if I get the girl. Does that mean I...?” he  trails off, sweet and nervous and cocky all at once. 

What a nerd.

She grabs his collar, draws him in for another kiss, and grins. “Yes, Bellamy. That absolutely means you got the girl.”


	49. Jack-o'-Lantern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From bellamyplake on tumblr: "spooky prompt: clarke is big huge pregnant and bellamy paints her belly like a pumpkin and octavia's babies are fascinated"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by SPOOKY we really mean FLUFFY AS HELL

Summer is clinging on with a death grip, which means it’s nearing Halloween and the temperature is in the nineties.

Clarke is due in a week and a half, and she’s already suffered through June, July, August,  _September,_ sweating through day after day of excessive heat while she gets slower, bigger,  _rounder_. She feels like it is not too much to ask for autumn to act like autumn, damn it, and cool the hell down. 

Little shrieks of delight reach her ears, and she cracks an eye open to watch Eli and Nora run around the backyard as Bellamy joins her on the porch swing. 

“I tried convincing them we could play pirates and mermaids in the bathtub if they came in for bath time,” Bellamy says, draping his arm around her shoulders. She leans her head against him, even though he’s too warm and the air is sticky and hot as it heads toward sundown, and the baby turns in her womb.

“Which would you be?” Clarke asks idly, tracing patterns on his thigh. 

“Mermaid, obviously.” 

Clarke smiles into his chest. “Obviously. Did it work?”

Bellamy sighs. “Not even close. They say they want to do art before bath time. Apparently Lincoln draws or paints or sculpts or something with them, every night.” Octavia and Lincoln are at a wedding out of town for the night, and Clarke and Bellamy are used to caring for the kids **—** they’re both teachers, so during the summers they take Eli and Nora for the day while Octavia and Lincoln work **—** but they’ve never actually had to do an overnight before.

“So paint with them,” Clarke says, shrugging, and Bellamy huffs a laugh, pressing a kiss to her brow. 

“I’m not exactly the artist in this relationship, Clarke,” he says dryly.

“Well, I’m on maternity leave,” Clarke replies. “I’m as round as a pumpkin and I’m not actually sure I can get off this bench, physically.”

“Do you  _want_  to get off this bench?” he asks immediately. He’s been like this her whole pregnancy **—** almost obnoxiously perfect, listening to her complain about the heartburn she gets whenever she eats her favorite spicy food, watching her carefully but never  _hovering_  in the helicopter fashion she’d feared he might, only offering help when she seems to need it, and not a second sooner so she never feels like an invalid. 

Clarke sighs. “No, not really. I’m as comfortable as I can get, these days.” 

“Okay.” He sighs when Nora shrieks at her little brother that  _he can’t catch her!_ “What do you think the odds are, me getting them clean and in bed before a meltdown?” 

She hums, considers the rising pitch of the kids’ voices. “Terrible. You should really try that art thing, Uncle Bell. I believe in you.” 

“What the hell am I supposed to paint?” he demands. “I’m an  _English_ teacher, not an art teacher like some people.”

She pats his chest, then pushes him away from her because damn it, it’s just too hot for any more cuddling. “Whatever the hell you want, Blake. Check Lincoln’s studio for supplies.” 

Bellamy sighs, kisses her, and drags himself off the porch swing and into the house. 

Clarke watches the kids play tag through heavy-lidded eyes. She’d been there for both of their births, Nora three and a half years ago, Eli two. Lincoln and Bellamy had both cried at each birth, but while Octavia had teared up a little, she mostly just looked victorious and proud when she held her babies.

Clarke declines to comment on the state of her own tear ducts when Nora and Eli let out their first cries. 

It’s kind of hard to believe that  _Clarke_ is going to be one holding her own baby in a matter of weeks. It still gets her heart racing sometimes, in awe and in terror and in love, because when she was first introduced to her best friend’s new girlfriend and her brother, she hadn’t exactly bonded with the surly English teacher. She usually trusted Lincoln’s taste, but  _god_ , she’d feared for him when she’d met the Blakes. Octavia was lovely, bright and open and a perfect match for Clarke’s quiet friend, but the brother was prickly and protective and beautiful and  _rude_ when she’d tried to make small talk about their similar careers. 

But things had gotten better, slowly, when she took the vacant art teacher position at the middle school where Bellamy was tenured. They discovered they tended to fall on the same side of things during debates on cost-of-living wage raises, banned books, whether or not the principal deserved to be investigated by the district. By the time they danced together at Lincoln and Octavia’s wedding, a year after the two had met, she and Bellamy were almost friends. 

Then, a few weeks later, he’d kissed her in her classroom after school one day, right in the middle of her rant about the cut to library funding. And that was just right.

Five years later, she’s married to the man, in one of those weird ways no one believes in real life because  _when_ do best friends actually marry siblings like in the movies? She has a pretty little house, a hot, adoring husband, a niece and nephew she loves.

And in a matter of weeks **—** days, even **—** she and Bellamy will have a baby. 

Bellamy emerges onto the porch again, lets an armful of non-toxic finger paint tumble onto the bench beside Clarke as she watches.

“Eli! Nora! Want to do art?”

“No!” Eli declares, which is, to be fair, one of his favorite words, but he appears to mean it as he continues to chase Nora around the yard. Nora giggles and joins in with his chant, and Clarke closes her eyes on the chorus of “No, no, no!” that fills the yard.

“Fine,” she hears Bellamy say loudly. “I’ll just art all by myself.” 

“Art is not really a verb,” she tells him. The baby kicks, and she shifts a little in her spot. “You should know.”

“Be quiet,” he says. “That’s how they say it on the internet. I’m hip.” 

Clarke snorts, and then her eyes pop open as he rolls up her tank top to expose her belly. There are stretch marks on the lower part of the curve, which she hates and Bellamy loves to trace with his mouth, which makes her hate them less, and her belly button’s long since given up the fight to stay an innie. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks mildly.

“Whatever the hell I want,” he retorts, mischief in his eyes as he echoes her words, and Clarke sighs. 

She watches with interest as he loudly narrates what he plans to do, how he couldn’t find the right orange so he’s going to mix yellow and red until it’s _just right_. 

Clarke lets out a squeak when the paint squirts out of the tubes onto her skin, and behind Bellamy, in the yard, she can see Nora and Eli slow their running and turn their attention toward the porch. 

Bellamy grabs a paintbrush, one that’s really meant for watercolors, not Crayola washable paint, and starts swirling the red and yellow together. Clarke squirms a little as the bristles drag over her skin, biting her lip to keep the giggles in. 

The kids creep up the porch stairs, inching closer until they’re staring, mesmerized, at the paint that Bellamy’s slowing covering Clarke’s belly with. 

“Uncle Bell?” Nora says eventually. “What are you painting?”

“Baby?” Eli asks before Bellamy can respond, looking from Clarke’s protruding belly to her face. She reaches out, smoothes a hand over his dark hair. 

“Yeah, honey. The baby’s in there.”

Just then, the baby kicks hard enough for it to be seen on the outside. Eli’s eyes round. “Baby!” 

“Uncle Bell!” Nora squeals, tugging on his arm. “You’re painting the baby!” 

Clarke grins at him as Bellamy tries to convince Nora that he’s not, in fact, painting the baby. 

“I’m painting a pumpkin,” he explains. “On Aunt Clarke’s belly, because it’s round like a pumpkin.” 

Clarke huffs a little, but Nora and Eli exclaim in agreement. 

“Can we paint?” Nora asks now. 

“Wanna paint!” Eli agrees.

Bellamy makes a show of considering it, until the kids are nearly vibrating with excitement. “Okay,” he says finally. “Hold out your hands.”

Clarke cringes at the thought, but they’re in their already-stained play clothes, and bath time is next on the schedule, so she keeps quiet. 

Bellamy paints their palms and fingers until they’re coated in orange. 

“Okay, guys,” Bellamy says, and she catches his wince when he shifts in his crouch. His knees are probably killing him.

“Old man,” she teases, and he mock-glares at her. 

“Okay,” he repeats louder. “We’re going to play a painting game. Whenever you see the baby move, paint it!” 

Eli slaps a hand on Clarke’s belly an instant later as the skin ripples with the baby’s movement.

“Gentle,” Bellamy reminds him. “Be careful with Aunt Clarke and the baby.” Eli looks at Clarke sorrowfully.

“Sowwy,” he says, already teary, and Clarke smiles. 

“It’s okay. Just be nice.” 

He pets her belly carefully, little pats that drag color over the taut skin. Nora nudges her brother until she’s right next to him, scrutinizing Clarke’s stomach for the next movement. She doesn’t have to wait long; the later it gets, the more active the baby is every night. He’s waking up now, stretching and turning as he gets more and more crowded in her womb. 

“There!” Nora squeals, and lays a deliberate hand over the spot.

“Good job,” Clarke praises, and then Bellamy, who’s painted his own palm by now, lays a careful hand over the spot too. He leaves a big handprint over her skin, and inexplicably **—** or at least as inexplicably as she does anything these days **—** she tears up. One even falls when he looks up at her, face open and so happy as he feels their baby move.

“Clarke?” he says when he sees the tear. 

She shakes her head, sniffles a little. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”  

Little by little, they paint her belly, until Clarke really does resemble a pumpkin, all round and orange and silly-looking. 

“I’m going to need bath time too,” she notes, and Bellamy grins. 

“I can help you with that,” he promises, and Clarke rolls her eyes even as her cheeks heat. Even now, after years together, he can still make her blush. 

“It needs eyes,” Nora tells them, scrutinizing the orange expanse. “And a smile.”

“Uh huh,” Eli agrees seriously, and picks out the tube of black paint from the collection Bellamy had brought earlier. “Hawwoween,” he tells them, handing Bellamy the paint. “P’ease?”   

“What do you say, Aunt Clarke?” Bellamy says, looking at her. “Jack-o’-lantern?” 

“Jack-o’-lantern!” Nora says. “ _Please_ , Aunt Clarke?”

“Aunt Clarke!” Eli adds, anxious, and pats her belly when he sees it move again. 

“Oh, alright,” Clarke says. “But when we’re done, it’s bath time. Got it?”

Nora and Eli both nod vigorously, then hold out their brightly-painted hands for the brushes Bellamy hands them. He squirts the black paint into his own hand, then holds it out like a palette. “Here,” he says. “Dip your brush in. Now, we need two eyes, and one smile.”

He makes a show of sizing up the kids. “You,” he says, tugging one of Nora’s curls. “You make one of the eyes. And you,” he adds, tapping Eli’s nose. “You’ll make the other.”

That leaves the smile for him, and a few minutes later Clarke has two dark, irregular splotches of paint high on her belly, and a tall, deep ‘u’ shape making the pumpkin smile. The edges of the grin go higher than the ‘eyes,’ and it makes Clarke smile in turn. 

“Happy,” Eli says, satisfied, and reaches out to touch it in admiration before they can stop him. The paint smears, the grin becoming almost frightening, definitely strange-looking, and Eli looks startled at the change. 

Nora, thankfully, just sighs long-sufferingly in that way sisters sigh about their brothers.

“I love it,” Clarke declares, and leans forward carefully to kiss all of their cheeks. “Baby loves it too.” 

Bellamy looks at her over the kids’ heads as they cheer and wiggle in that too-energetic way kids do when they’re more than ready for bed. His smile is soft, sweet, just for her. The first time he’d smiled at her like that, years ago, she’d known she was a goner.

“But what did we say would happen after art?” Bellamy reminds the kids when they quiet down.

“I don’t know,” Nora replies innocently. Eli echoes her.

“Don’t know!”

“That’s too bad,” Clarke says thoughtfully. “Because  _I_ remember, and it was going to be so much fun...I guess I’ll just have fun without you two.”

Eli breaks first. “Bath?”

“Not just any bath,” Bellamy reminds them. “Mermaids and pirates!” 

“I’m a pirate!” Nora says quickly.

Clarke goes to get up, follow the crew inside so she can clean the sticky pumpkin paint off her belly. And she can’t; even when she tries to brace her hands on the bench to push herself up, she can’t balance herself right to stand. It doesn’t help that the swing moves.

“Um,” she says. “I’m stuck.” 

Bellamy, who’d been distracted telling the kids to put their hands up in the air and keep them there until they get to the bathroom to wash off the paint, looks at her in surprise. Then he grins at her, and she pouts a little. 

“Come on, Blake,” she says, and holds out her hands. “Save me!”

Nora and Eli watch, hands in the air, as Bellamy leans down and slides an arm around her waist. Her belly presses into him, leaving orange and black jack-o’-lantern paint in an ugly smear across his Ark Middle School t-shirt as he helps lift her to her feet. His hand lingers on her waist as he makes sure she’s steady, and Clarke shakes her head at him. 

“Now  _you’re_ covered in paint,” she points out.

He shrugs. “It was already on my hands. Plus, now we both need a bath.”

The way he looks at her tells Clarke he’s not talking  _mermaids and pirates_ bath time with the kids. 

Her heart thumps fast, and the baby moves, and she’s so, so in love with him. 

* * *

Their son is born the next Saturday, on Halloween, and they name him Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm currently [accepting spooky prompts through my blog](http://www.enoughtotemptme.tumblr.com/ask) if you want something Halloweenish! Let me know your thoughts if you get a chance <3


	50. As If By Magic (You're The Only Home I Know)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From tierannasaurusrex on tumblr: "GROUNDER BELLAMY + WITCH CLARKE PLSSSS"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Then this happened. It is neither what I expected nor what I planned, but I’m still fond of it. Title is from "As If By Magic" by La Roux because I love taking lovely turns of phrase out of their song's context.

The witch falls from the stars when Bellamy is ten and Octavia is four, and for a witch, she’s not very impressive. 

For one thing, she’s tiny, barely older than Octavia, and for another, though she speaks their warrior’s language, she pronounces the words with a lisp. 

Bellamy’s the one who finds her, when he’s playing in the woods with Lincoln. They hear the crash, smell the strange burning scent, and follow it through the woods to find a big metal box half-in and half-out of the creek.

There’s a window of sorts, and Lincoln and Bellamy jostle each other, trying to be the first to peek through the thick, warped glass. 

“It’s a girl,” Lincoln says.

“Shut up,” Bellamy says, and cautiously presses closer to the hot metal. “It is not.”

And he’s right. It’s not a girl, because just as he’s looking at her, taking in her little face, the blood trickling from her temple, her eyes snap open.

Her irises grow bright silver and she looks straight at him.

When he and Lincoln wake up, they’re a good twenty feet away from the box, and the witch is crouched next to them. Her eyes, blue now, plain blue, are fixed on him while he pushes himself to a sitting position, eyeing her warily. 

“You scared me,” she says primly, but the ‘r’ in  _scared_ sounds more like a ‘w.’ "I didn't mean to."

Bellamy sighs. He’s good with English, and he’s been taking lessons, but when he replies, the words come to mind and out of his mouth almost too quickly.

Almost magically.

“Just don’t do it again, okay?” 

“Okay,” she agrees, and stretches out her hand to help him to his feet. He takes it, and her palm is soft and pale in his, and his hand suddenly feels like it’s been dead asleep, and is coming back to life again all at once. 

* * *

She tells them her name is Clarke, Clarke Griffin, and Bellamy thinks it’s fitting that she shares a name with a magical creature. 

“I’m not a creature,” she says hotly when he tells her this. He’s thirteen, and she’s eight, and the healer who had taken her in uses Clarke to heat the water in the middle of winter to boiling hot, to coax the tender spring buds of the herbs they need for medicine, to put the injured to sleep so they can be stitched up. “I’m a witch.”

“You’re something,” he says, and tugs her braid. He’d been the one to teach her how to do it. Now her fingers are quicker and defter than his, and she comes up with new twists and braids to teach Octavia nearly every week. 

She’d taken to their language, too, and was better with  _Trigedasleng_ after a day than Bellamy was with English after years.

“I’m a  _witch_ ,” she’d told him when he’d complained about it, how unfair it was. “I’m magical, dummy.”

“Shouldn’t there be limits to what you can do?” he’d griped in response. “How is it you can learn languages, knock people out, _and_ make things grow...shouldn’t there be  _something_ you can’t do?”

She’d shrugged, and told him she’d let him know as soon as she found out what that something was.

They haven’t found it yet, though. She and Octavia play in the creek in the middle of winter because Clarke can warm the water until it feels like a hot bath, and she makes shapes in the fire to go along with whatever story Bellamy tells over dinner, and the animals always do what she asks them to, as if they understand.

“You’re annoying,” she retorts when he tugs her braid again, and flicks his hand away like a fly. 

* * *

Clarke is eleven, and he’s sixteen, and she’s declared that she’s in love with Octavia, who just turned ten a month ago.

“I think you’re a little young for love,” he tells her over lunch, and she smacks his hand before it can reach the complicated braid her hair is in today. 

“I think you’re a little young to be so cynical about true love,” she replies, tart, and Bellamy snorts, and regrets teaching her the word 'cynical.' “But you don’t see  _me_ being rude about it.” 

“How do you know you’re in love?” he tries. 

Clarke shrugs. “She’s nice, and she’s pretty, and she’s my best friend, and she makes me laugh, and she smells good.”

Reluctantly, Bellamy smiles.

“And,” Clarke adds thoughtfully, “I like kissing her. It’s nice, and soft.”

Bellamy makes a face. “Ugh.” What is he supposed to do with that information? He feels like there is something in the rules, about threatening and making sure his little sister doesn’t get her heart broken. But he loves them both; he doesn’t want Clarke to get her heart broken either. “Ugh,” he says again, for lack of anything else to say.

Clarke pats him on the shoulder. “Grow up, Bellamy,” she says kindly, and leaves him to his food.

A week later, Octavia and Clarke decide that kissing is nice, but being in love is too time-consuming for their busy schedules; they just can’t deal with it right now. Clarke makes it rain a little bit, to commemorate the sad end to their love affair, while Octavia holds her hand and watches solemnly; then they steal some of Bellamy’s favorite dried fruit while he pretends not to notice, and spend the evening talking about how pretty Keri is and how funny Miloh was yesterday until they fall asleep.

* * *

When he’s eighteen, and she’s thirteen, Octavia and Aurora go to visit Octavia’s father at the sea like they do every spring after the first thaw, and Bellamy stays home in TonDC. He used to feel jealous, feel the slow curdling distress in his gut that his sister got a father and he got nothing, and then he’d feel guilty, too, because he  _loves_ his sister, and she deserves a father more than he does. 

Then Clarke had looked at him, her eyes turning dangerously grey **—** not silver, not yet, but it was a warning **—** and told him he was being an idiot. “You have a mother, and a sister,” Clarke had said, voice clipped. “I have a memory of warm hands and the scent of antiseptic.” 

Bellamy’s shoulders had hunched in, and he’d mumbled apologies until she rolled her eyes and elbowed him gently. 

“Try and be grateful for what you have,” she’d said. “Not angry about what you don’t.”

So he’d worked on it, because even though she was still small, Clarke was smart, and strong, and a force to be reckoned with, but most importantly, she was his friend.

And this year he’d sent his sister and mother off with strong hugs and a soft yank to Octavia’s braid, which earned him a furious look, a kick to the shins, and a quick kiss to his cheek. 

They were meant to be gone for two weeks. 

Thirteen days later, a sudden snowstorm causes everything to freeze again. It used to be that something like this would be devastating for them, but now Clarke is here to keep the crop seeds they’ve just started to plant from dying. It exhausts her to do it, the constant drain on her powers, but he makes sure she gets food, water. Naps when the days are at their warmest, and the crops can handle the temperature for a while on their own.

Fifteen days after his mother and sister leave, the snow is just a thin crust on the ground, and it’s been cleared away from their crops, so Clarke can finally stop,  _sleep_.  

After sixteen days with no sign of his family, even Clarke looks worried, and she helps him convince the  _heda_ that a search party is worth the lost time with spring planting. 

“You  _know_ I can make up for any lost growing time,” she says, brows drawn together. 

Anya doesn’t move but for the smallest twitch of her jaw. They all know what Clarke is, have all  _benefitted_ from what Clarke is, but most of them don’t particularly like to acknowledge it. 

“You’ve never had to do so on such a large scale,” Anya points out coolly. “The herb garden is hardly the size of the spring planting.” 

Clarke huffs. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do it,” she snaps, and her hair frizzes up with the sparks she gives off. Bellamy reaches out, touches her elbow to calm her. She settles, a little, but continues to glare at Anya rather than look at him.

The muscle in Anya’s jaw twitches again at the obvious display of Clarke’s abilities manifesting. “Fine,” she says. “They’ll leave at dawn.”

But Clarke is shaking her head. “We need to leave  _now_ ,” she says. Her voice is strained, her face pinched with worry. “I have a bad feeling,” she admits softly, and Bellamy’s heart freezes. 

Clarke doesn’t often have  _feelings_  about things, and when she does, the feelings aren’t always bad. But they’re always  _true._

He looks at Anya, anxious, sick, and wants to cry when the woman just nods sharply at Clarke’s statement. “Very well.”

They find them in a cave nearly a day’s journey from TonDC. The snow is thicker here, the air colder. Clarke falls twice, slipping on the icy ground, before Bellamy takes her hand. 

Aurora and Octavia are curled together, faces tucked in each other’s necks to minimize exposure. All extra clothes from their packs are on their bodies, and even the packs themselves are draped over them for whatever warmth they can offer.

Next to them is a pile of wet, icy wood that they clearly couldn’t get to catch fire.

“No,” Bellamy says. “No, no, no,  _no_.” He lets go of Clarke’s hand and drops to his knees next to them, carefully rolling them away from each other. They’re pale, cold, which is  _wrong_ , they’re supposed to be pink-nosed and pink-cheeked and shivering from the cold, not pale and still and quiet. 

Their lips are blue. 

“Bellamy.” Clarke’s voice is a whisper, and he rubs tears from his face with the back of his hand as he continues to try to wake them up. “ _Bellamy_.” 

“What?” he demands, shooting her a furious look. She’s blurry, but even through the tears he can see the luminous glow of her eyes. 

“Move,” she says, gentle, and for a second, he doesn’t react, just stares. Then he scrambles to the side so she can kneel, place one hand on Octavia’s face, the other over his sister’s heart. 

“She’s still alive,” Clarke says. “Her heart is still beating, just slowly.”

Her eyes go soft, unfocused even while they continue to glow. Her body, on the other hand, is tense, every bit of her intent on Octavia. The stray hairs from her braid start to lift, crackling with electricity. Then, suddenly, there’s a loud crack, like when lightning split the old oak tree on the edge of the village in the last thunderstorm, and all he can see is white. When Bellamy’s vision clears, Octavia’s eyes are wide open, her chest heaving as she gasps in air, and her face is flooding with good, healthy color. 

“O,” he chokes, and gathers her up in his arms. “O.”

“Bell,” she breathes, and hugs him back. Weakly, tired, but she’s  _hugging him back_.

“Now her,” Bellamy says to Clarke over Octavia’s head, still clutching his sister to him. “Please, Clarke, now her.” His mother is so quiet, so still. 

Clarke looks sick, exhausted. But she stretches her hands out to Aurora, rests them gently on her skin and clothes. 

But nothing happens. Clarke’s eyes glow, and her hair lifts, and she starts to tremble, straining, but nothing happens. 

“Clarke!” Bellamy yells, and Octavia starts to cry into his chest. 

“I **—** I can’t,” Clarke whispers, stricken. “She’s already gone.”

She looks at him, at Octavia. Her face is covered in a terrible grief that somehow seems worse than his own. “I’m sorry,” she says, faint. Then she passes out. 

* * *

Lincoln carries Clarke, because Octavia’s still too weak to walk and Bellamy’s busy carrying her. The others carry Aurora's body on a makeshift stretcher, and they walk until they're far enough from the cave that Bellamy doesn't feel like he's going to be sick. They make camp in a tight copse of trees, scraping the snow off the ground and pitching tents around the fire they make with dry wood from their packs.

Lincoln tucks Clarke into a bedroll, still passed out, then talks to Octavia to keep her awake long enough to get some food into her. It's been days since she's eaten. 

Bellamy focuses on dinner, gathering food from everyone’s packs. Dried meat, onions, potatoes go into the pot with water, and the second the meat is soft enough to eat he ladles a bowl for his sister. 

She inhales it, and then a second bowl, and then he wraps her in a bedroll and tucks her in next to Clarke. After a slurred, “Love you, Bell,” Octavia drifts asleep almost instantly. 

Bellamy smooths a hand over her dark hair, then glances at Clarke, out of habit and because he just can’t help it anymore.

She saved his sister.

But she didn’t save his _mother_. 

But she saved his sister, and he loves her for that. 

He lets the others finish the stew. He’s not hungry. Instead, he goes to lie down, and slips between the girls so he can feel them both breathe.

* * *

Clarke wakes him up in the middle of the night. 

Her eyes are tired, tired blue, no hint of grey or silver or magic. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to him, over and over, and the sound is what draws him out of troubled, confusing dreams. “I’m sorry, Bellamy. I’m sorry.”

She still looks so exhausted, so  _young._ And he’s reminded, that even with her powers, her abilities, the village depending on her more and more to keep them alive and health and  _safe **—**_ she’s only a thirteen-year-old girl. 

He puts his hand on her cheek; it’s cold. “I know, Clarke,” he says. He tries for gentle, but his voice comes out rough. “I guess we’ve found your limit.” 

Her face crumples, and Bellamy pulls her closer, letting her burrow into him as tears soak his neck. 

* * *

Their house feels empty without Aurora, and after a few months of living like that, Octavia begs him to ask Clarke to move in with them. 

“She’s lonely,” Octavia says, and when she clutches her elbows, holding herself tight, it’s clear she’s not just talking about Clarke. “She needs us.”

Their healer had left to go to a different village after the spring trades, a village that had no healer. Even though she was the one who had taken Clarke in, given her a home and food and learning when the little witch fell to the earth, she didn’t offer to take Clarke with her. She just told Clarke that she’d already learned all that she could teach her, and there was no point in two healers staying where only one was needed. 

“If she lived here, we would get bothered all the time,” Bellamy points out. “Anyone with a splinter or a cold would be knocking on our door in the middle of the night, looking for her.”

“Do you really care?” Octavia asks.

Clarke looks surprised when Bellamy comes into her house when she’s working and tells her she should pack her things, move them into their house. 

“Why?” she wants to know, raising an eyebrow as she grinds herbs.

“It’s quiet,” he says. “We want the company.”

“Ask Lincoln,” she says promptly, and stares hard at her mortar and pesetle. Lincoln’s mother had died when he was born, and his father died last year—panther attack.

“He snores,” Bellamy replies. “Really, he shakes the house,” he insists when Clarke gives him a look. Plus, his friend is different than Clarke. He does well, alone with his quiet little house. If he asked, Lincoln would move in with them, but only because he’d think  _they_ needed  _him,_ not because he wanted to.

“Why?” Clarke asks again after a moment, serious this time. “I have a perfectly good house right here.” 

There are a lot of answers he could give that would all be true, but only one is the right one.

“Because we love you,” he says. There are others in the village who would take her in, give her a place with them if they thought she needed it. They keep quiet about her powers, but even if they don’t like to talk about them, they  _like_ Clarke. "And we want you close." 

But the other villagers don’t  _know_ her, don’t know to think that she needs people, home, family around her when she has a perfectly good house and all the healing knowledge to make sure she’s a valued part of the village. 

But he knows her, because he loves her. 

“You’d better not snore like your sister does,” she tells him finally, and he gives her a small grin. 

“Oh, I do. Even louder,” he says, and she groans.

* * *

When Clarke is eighteen, he’s twenty-three and Lia starts to flirt with him. 

Bellamy has no clue what to do. His sister mostly laughs at him when he tries to ask for help, and then when she leaves to visit Lincoln and Bellamy asks Clarke about it, she just stares at him coolly.

“Do you wantto flirt back?”

He shrugs, uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

Her chin lifts, and even though she’s a good five inches shorter than him, it feels like she’s looking down her nose at him. “I can’t help you unless you figure it out.”

She goes back to coaxing morning glories to grow around the slats of her headboard, and Bellamy flops onto her bed with a sigh. 

“How have you never kissed a girl before?” Clarke wonders aloud. “Or even flirted with one? You’re old.”

He props himself up on his elbows so he can glare at her.

“I don’t see you flirting with anyone,” he retorts, and then feels himself pale a little when she raises an eyebrow.

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t,” she says calmly, and holds out a hand until a blossom obligingly drops into her palm. She tucks it into her hair, the bright purple hue of the petals making her eyes seem impossibly blue. “It just means you're oblivious, or that I just have the decency to not broadcast my business to everyone,” she adds, pointed. She nudges him until he scoots over, makes room for her on the bed. She picks up the book he’d given to her for her last birthday and opens it to somewhere near the middle. 

“Whatever,” he mutters, and ignores the deep-down contentment that fills him when she leans against him, soft and warm and smelling like flowers. “It’s not exactly easy to just make out with girls when I’ve got you two living with me.”

Clarke snaps the book shut, startling him. When she turns to look at him, she’s glaring, and her eyes are that deep grey. 

“Don’t ever use me as an excuse,” she says furiously. “I refuse to be held responsible for the unhappiness you cause yourself. _You're_ the one who wanted me to take the empty bedroom, and you can tell me to leave at any time.”

“That’s not **—** ” he tries, but then her eyes brim over a little. 

“Is that really what you think?” she says. “That I’m just a teenager you have to deal with? Who gets in your way with girls?”

“What? No!” Bellamy says, panicked. “No. I’m sorry, that’s not what I mean at all. Please don't leave.”

“What  _did_ you mean, then?” she says. 

Uncomfortable, he shifts. “Just **—** I don’t know. You’re right, it was shitty and I was blaming you for no reason. It’s kind of embarrassing, I guess, being the total failure at romantic relationships that I apparently am. My little sister is better at it than I am, and I’ve got a six year head start with nothing to show for it.”

“Nothing?” 

Bellamy flushes, thinks of the way he’d panicked and told Lia she had a bug on her shoulder when she’d leaned in as if to kiss him, and then how he’d slipped away before she could realize there was no bug.

“Nothing,” he says.

Clarke rolls her eyes at him. “That’s easy enough to fix,” she tells him, exasperated, and just as Bellamy frowns, opens his mouth to ask her what she means by that, she sets the book on the ground, turns to straddle him, and kisses him full on the mouth.

Bellamy is frozen, terrified and aroused and utterly confused about how what is currently happening came to be a thing that is actually  _happening_ , in real life and not just in his dreams.

Hesitant, he starts to move his hands toward her hips, but she pulls away before he can touch her. 

“Um,” she says, and drops her gaze. “So, yeah. Now you’ve got something to show for it.” 

She seems **—** almost embarrassed, and when he tilts her chin up so he can look her in the face, he can see she’s biting the inside of her cheek.

Carefully, while she watches, he closes the gap between their mouths. She’s still for a few seconds, and with each one he grows exponentially more nervous and realizes  _why_ she seemed embarrassed and pulled away from him, if his frozen shock made her feel anything like this.  

Her lips are soft, smooth from the balm she mixes up to prevent chapping, and when he slides his hand around to cradle her jaw, her skin feels warm and delicate. 

His mouth tingles where it touches hers, and she tastes like magic when she finally opens her lips and kisses him back. 

He’d be content to kiss her forever, probably, so he’s startled when she takes his hand, the one on her hip, and slides it up her torso to cover her breast. 

“Clarke,” he says against her mouth, helpless. “You’re eighteen.” It feels like something he should say, even if he’s in love with her. 

“I hate panther meat,” she replies, and arches into his hand. 

“What?” he blurts out, and her breast is surprisingly heavy in his hand. 

“I thought we were listing irrelevant facts,” she breathes, and grinds against him. 

“Oh,” he chokes, and rocks his hips up into hers. 

* * *

After, she lies on top of him, draped bonelessly over him. She’s cuddled against him like this before, but she’s never done it naked. That part’s new, and interesting, and amazing. 

He loves her. 

She’s nice, and pretty, and makes him laugh. She smells good, and she’s his best friend, and he likes kissing her, and he’s in love with her.

“Is this magic?” he asks, toying with her hair. “Is it magic making me feel this way?”

Clarke props her chin on his chest, watches him seriously. “Do you think it is?”

“No,” Bellamy replies, and smooths a hand down her bare spine until she shivers and presses closer. “No, I think it’s just you.”

She hums and rolls off him so she can curl into his side. “We’ve talked about the limits my powers have,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“We know about one,” she says. “But this is another. I can’t ever use my magic to change the way you feel, because I won’t, Bellamy.”

“I know that,” he says. 

“It wouldn’t be real if you didn’t love me because  _you_  wanted to,” Clarke adds softly, and Bellamy squeezes her tight. 

“I want to,” he tells her, and she starts to glow. Bellamy looks down at her, startled, but she’s beaming at him, no trace of silver in her eyes. Just blue, and a soft glow like moonlight that surrounds her whole body.

“I’ve never seen you do that before,” he says, surprised. “Not even when **—** ” He flushes, remembering her gasps and the way she shuddered when he touched her the way she showed him, and she laughs, a clear, delighted sound.

“I’ve never done it before,” she replies, and kisses him thoroughly. “I’m not doing it on purpose. But I’ve never been this happy, either.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says. “You dummy, I love you.” 

“Oh, good,” he says. “I love you too.”

* * *

Clarke tells him later, but she remembers more about her life in the stars than she’d ever told anyone.

Her father was an engineer, she tells him, and Clarke told him their home was dying long before the calculations were run to prove it.

She could feel it, she told her father, could feel the way the bodies were changing incrementally, growing weaker with the slow decline of oxygen levels. She could feel everything.

And she could feel the ground, she’d told him too, how alive it was, with water and earth and living things **—** not just plants, animals, but people too.

Her father had smiled, ruffled her hair.  _You have such a beautiful imagination, Clarke_ , he’d said.  _It must be that artist’s eye of yours._

Clarke had frowned, but let herself be tucked in bed and sent off to sleep.

And the next day, out of idle curiosity, Jake Griffin had started to run the Ark diagnostics, set his computers to running numbers.

By the end of the week, he’d run the numbers countless more times, and he felt endlessly older.

His daughter was right.

The Ark was dying, and so were its people.

So was his daughter, unless he saved her.

His only solace was that if she was right about the Ark, she was right about the ground.

So he had stolen away with her one night, knowing his wife would never forgive him for taking their daughter and sending her away. And he had put her in the tiny dropship he’d repaired, buckled her into the seat, kissed her brow with tears burning at the back of his eyes and throat.

Some of these things, she's not sure how she knows. She only knows that she does, and that they're true.

“I remember waking up, so sleepy,” Clarke says. “And I called for him, asked what was going on. He just touched my hair, told me to close my eyes. That he loved me, and everything was going to be alright, because the next time I opened my eyes, I’d be home.” 

He must have had a little of her own gift, Clarke explains, because she’d instantly fallen back to sleep, and had slept through her father closing the dropship, through the descent to earth, through the landing.

“He told me,  _when you open your eyes again, you’ll be home,”_ Clarke repeats, and smiles at him. “I opened my eyes, and I saw you.” 


	51. A Light That's Keeping Us Forever: Table of Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Due to a request, below is a Table of Contents for this fic collection!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to end this fic collection at fifty fics. It's been a joy, but it's getting a little too unwieldy, and I think it's time to start a new one, the next time I fill a prompt. 
> 
> **If there are any fics in this collection that you would like me to re-post as a stand-alone fic for any reason (ease of finding a specific fic later, ease of downloadability, etc.), please let me know in a comment on this chapter.**
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and letting me know your thoughts all this time!

###  [Chapter 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8014443): Seven Letters   

> From jasminenightshade on tumblr: "Clarke and Bellamy and the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle."

###  [Chapter 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8067294): Dizzy on Dreams   

> From jasminenightshade on tumblr: "Bellamy has been tense and Clarke decides the best way for him to relieve stress is by giving him a massage. ;)"

###  [Chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8083230): Snapchat  

> From sadgirlokay on tumblr: "My friend thought you were cute so she tried to take a picture of you for snapchat and her flash went off but when you looked our way she shoved her phone into my hands and nOW YOU THINK IT’S ME AND OH GOD PLS DON’T BE MAD”

###  [Chapter 4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8150412): Partners   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "43. Bellarke: falling in love with their best friend's partner (like police partner maybe)"

###  [Chapter 5](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8185931): Chocolate Volcano   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Can you do the chocolate volcano prompt with bellarke?"
> 
> AKA “im a bartender and you just came in here without shoes sat down and ordered a chocolate volcano and idk what the fuck that is and im scared to ask” au

###  [Chapter 6](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8278864): Runescape   

> From sadgirlokay on tumblr: “we both play this stupid game online and you keep beating me every single goddamn time so i called you out and you are pretty cute but can you not”

###  [Chapter 7](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8297686): Boulder   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "'Bellamy, what did you do to your hand?' 'There was a boulder trapping you.' 'And you tried to fight it?'"

###  [Chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8322523): Undercover   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke's new neighbor is smart, charming, and handsome. Unfortunately she's also pretty sure he works for the local crime ring. Bellamy's falling for Clarke; unfortunately he's an undercover cop investigating her for ties to local crime ring."

###  [Chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8327200): Sunbathing   

> From jasminenightshade on tumblr: "Raven and Clarke are sunbathing / tanning topless and Wick and Bellamy happen upon them. Now this can be an AU or canon verse. Either is fine!"

###  [Chapter 10](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8344996): Murder Gorilla   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke is being chased by the murder gorilla and Bellamy tries to rescue her."

###  [Chapter 11](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8396344): Cave   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke and Bellamy trapped in a cave"

###  [Chapter 12](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8448874): First Kiss  

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellarke + first kiss" [First part of Firsts trilogy]

###  [Chapter 13](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8490760): Another First   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy Blake, are you staring at my breasts?"
> 
> A sequel fic to "First Kiss," the previous chapter in this collection. [Second part of Firsts trilogy]

###  [Chapter 14](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8533186): Lasts   

> From smallerontheoutside on tumblr: "Bellamy 'i want to be all your lasts, too, because I'm a huge dork loser who is stupid in love with you' Blake" [Third and final part of Firsts trilogy]

###  [Chapter 15](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8533264): Cerberus   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy and Clarke and Bellamy's new best friend a stray three-headed corgi named Cerberus"

###  [Chapter 16](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8535625): Sketches   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy finds Clarke's sketches of him"

###  [Chapter 17](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8537257): Girl Talk   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke and Raven compare Finn and Bellamy in bed and Bellamy totally hears"

###  [Chapter 18](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8648098): Double Date   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Minty and Bellarke double date"

###  [Chapter 19](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8655211): Hellamy Blake   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "That's why they call me Hellamy Blake." "Nobody calls you Hellamy Blake!"

###  [Chapter 20](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8728042): By the Lake   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Hey there! How about a classic competitive Bellarke: we are both leaders at a summer camp and my kids are going to kick your kids asses in the camp competition?"

###  [Chapter 21](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8733340): Art Class   

> From ichabodjane on tumblr: “I’m in art class and I just opened a cupboard to find a tiny person (you) squished inside and you just looked at and said ‘shh i’m hiding’”

###  [Chapter 22](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8750146): Dreams   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "I had a sex dream about you and now I can't look you in the eye" [First part in the Dreams/Reality duo]

###  [Chapter 23](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8760145): Festival   

> From cinnamonandseasalt on tumblr: "Bellarke + 47 [Meeting at a festival AU]"

###  [Chapter 24](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8836300): Old Marrieds   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellamy and Clarke have all their friends over for dinner in their new place, and Octavia and Raven start teasing them about being old marrieds until Clarke says well actually and shows them the ring..."

###  [Chapter 25](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8859472): Idiots   

> From bellamyblake-rocksmy-socks on tumblr: "Bellarke + they're always hanging out together and they're just good friends, but everyone thinks they're together and the surprise when they announce they finally are, so everyone is like 'you weren't together before?' Bonus if it involves them getting caught making out by their entire friend group."

###  [Chapter 26](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8873104): Lead Me Out On The Moonlit Floor   

> From blakesdoitbetter on tumblr: "Bellarke slow dancing at Octavia's wedding. They've been hooking up for a year "casually" but they're both kidding themselves and with the dancing and the heart eyes and the emotional song/day in general they finally get it together."

###  [Chapter 27](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/8976994): Bartenders   

> From blakesdoitbetter on tumblr: "Bellarke, obvi, are locally famous bartenders who have a weird psychic connection and they do all these drink gimmicks like matching drinks to customers personalities and throwing things at each other/catching them without even looking up, etc. but Clarke is tiny and Bellamy is huge so one day after celebrating Clarke passing her bio final, she gets a lil schwasted and he gives her a piggyback ride home where she cuddles into him the whole time ;)"

###  [Chapter 28](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9021526): Forest Kisses   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Bellarke and surprise forest kisses"

###  [Chapter 29](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9065875): New Neighbors   

> From feminist14er on tumblr: "Long distance relationship au, please?  **Or brand new neighbors au.**  Either would be lovely!"

###  [Chapter 30](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9111454): Caught   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke, why are you wearing Bellamy's shirt?"

###  [Chapter 31](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9189814): Boyfriend   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke punches a dude in the face. "GET AWAY FROM MY BOYFRIEND." (They are not dating.)"

###  [Chapter 32](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9210100): Little Spoons   

> This one's not the typical fic prompt. Instead, it's a fic developed out of an OTP ask meme on tumblr, answering the following questions:
> 
> Which one sexts like a straight white boy?  
>  Which one cried during a fucking disney movie?  
>  Who put a goddamned fork in the microwave?  
>  Who does the silly hands-over-the-eyes “Guess who” thing?  
>  Who puts their cold hands/feet on their partner?  
>  Who had that embarrassing Reality TV marathon?  
>  Who laughs more during sex?  
>  WHO IS THE LITTLE SPOON?
> 
> Thanks to blakesdoitbetter for requesting it! ;)

###  [Chapter 33](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9226105): Single Parents   

> From anonymous on tumblr: "single parent au + bellarke" [Now a standalone fic: See "A Risky Venture" in my works for more.]

###  [Chapter 34](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9337758): Hand in Hand   

> From anonymous on tumblr: “uhhh, this is a prompt i saw somewhere else. but could you do a modern AU for bellarke where bellamy is afraid to lose clarke in crowds because of how short she is so he holds her hand and eventually she starts to notice he is doing it even when it is just a few people. please.”

###  [Chapter 35](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9822564): Reality   

> From winterwaters/notmylady on tumblr: “This is my official request for a follow-up to Bellamy’s "next time” promise in ch 22 Dreams" [Second part of the Dreams/Reality duo]

###  [Chapter 36](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9923399): Aurora Borealis   

> From blakesdoitbetter on tumblr: "Bellarke + tattoo artist Bellamy and florist Clarke" [Now a standalone fic: See "Aurora Borealis" in my works for more.]

###  [Chapter 37](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/9952619): Cooking Class   

> From deargodtomanyfandoms on tumblr: "teacher/student AU" [combined with this prompt: “I teach a cooking class and you’re the worst student I’ve ever had.”] [First part of Cooking Class universe duo.]

###  [Chapter 38](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/10206579): Virtue   

> From only-judy-can-judge-moi on tumblr: "living in a society where their love is taboo au” [A Regency era AU]

###  [Chapter 39](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/10379268): Pretense   

> From lydiahstilinski on tumblr: “my ex just invited me to their wedding and I need you to be my date so it doesn't look like I've spent the last few years failing to get over them.”

###  [Chapter 40](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/10699724): The Pretty One   

> From apanoplyofsong on tumblr: "Oh man but “23. i’m really drunk, please help me get safely out of the way so i don’t ruin my friends wedding” for Bellarke would be a gift because: either of them drunk, I mean GOD BLESS"

###  [Chapter 41](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/10885889): Matchmaking (Out)   

> From sandycoelho on tumblr: "I would love to read something about Octavia being the matchmaker to Bellamy and Clarke because she knows and see the way they like each other, without doing something to be together."

###  [Chapter 42](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11068715): A Little Bit in Love   

> From nathenmiller on tumblr: "CASUALLY COMES INTO YOUR ASK TO ASK FOR A SMUTTY PART 2 OF THE COOKING CLASS DRABBLE" [Second part of Cooking Class universe duo.]

###  [Chapter 43](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11140181): Statistics   

> From wereadtoliveathousandlives on tumblr: "If you'd told her this morning that her day was going to end up like this, she probably would've just stayed in bed."

###  [Chapter 44](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11190013): Retail   

> From the-girl-who-nerded on tumblr: "How about Bellarke working retail together and having to get up at ungodly hours to restock the store and staying late to put everything back and they always try to outdo each other and their manager gets tired of it and threatens to not let them work together any more and they pretend their not upset by the prospect but they totally are" [A Tipsy Prompt™]

###  [Chapter 45](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11190358): Atlas   

> From apanoplyofsong on tumblr: "Does it count as a prompt if I say literally anything involving Bellarke and dogs because I know what I'm about??" [A Tipsy Prompt™]

###  [Chapter 46](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11524714): Love You Much Better   

> From apanoplyofsong on tumblr: "I feel like I should keep up the tradition and prompt you about dogs but it feels like that would take so much ENERGY right now" + "wtf is that thing and what are you doing with it?" [A Tipsy Prompt™]

###  [Chapter 47](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11525662): Laughter   

> From tierannasaurusrex on tumblr: "TIPSY PROMPT: GROUNDER BELLAMY" [A Tipsy Prompt™]

###  [Chapter 48](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11526466): How You Get the Girl   

> From madjm on tumblr: "Clarke inadvertently challenges Bellamy to try to hit on her by laughing at the fact that he has no game." [A Tipsy Prompt™]

###  [Chapter 49](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11650555): Jack-o'-Lantern   

> From bellamyplake on tumblr: "spooky prompt: clarke is big huge pregnant and bellamy paints her belly like a pumpkin and octavia's babies are fascinated" [A Spooky Prompt]

###  [Chapter 50](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3629289/chapters/11673427): As If By Magic (You're The Only Home I Know)  

> From tierannasaurusrex on tumblr: "GROUNDER BELLAMY + WITCH CLARKE PLSSSS" [A Spooky Prompt]


End file.
